Meanwhile In Congress

As I keep saying, Trump's not going anywhere until Republicans in Congress decide he's outlived his usefulness as a lightning rod for all the draconian cuts they plan.  Maybe they'll get rid of him at some point, but not until he signs everything the GOP in Congress have been waiting decades to get.

A House Republican is sponsoring legislation to do away with large portions of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including environmental justice and greenhouse gas programs. 

Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) introduced the Wasteful EPA Programs Elimination Act on Thursday, saying it would save $7.5 billion annually. That would leave the agency with a budget of less than $1 billion. 

Major EPA climate change programs would be eliminated under the measure.

The legislation would also close all of the EPA’s regional offices, halt new regulations on ground-level ozone pollution and require the agency to lease unused property. 

“As a fiscal conservative, I believe Washington should be a good steward of taxpayers’ dollars,” Johnson said in a statement. 

“Part of being a good steward includes reining in unnecessary spending, holding agencies accountable for ‘waste,’ and getting rid of politicians’ ‘pet projects.’ For example, American taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for the EPA’s many vacant and underutilized properties that the EPA’s own Inspector General identified as wasteful,” he said.

Of course this has nothing to do with money, not when the Trump regime plans trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy that will explode the national debt.  But cutting the EPA by 90%?  That's a victory for GOP corporate greed that will pay off a hundredfold in donations down the road, and they know it.

Panic Mode On The Right

Expect to see a lot more of this as the reality of the Trump regime kicks in: WaPo conservative columnist Kathleen Parker is pretty confident at this point of her prediction of total victory in 2018 -- for the Democrats.

Good news: In two years, we’ll have a new president. Bad news: If we make it that long.

My “good” prediction is based on the Law of the Pendulum. Enough Americans, including most independent voters, will be so ready to shed Donald Trump and his little shop of horrors that the 2018 midterm elections are all but certain to be a landslide — no, make that a mudslide — sweep of the House and Senate. If Republicans took both houses in a groundswell of the people’s rejection of Obamacare, Democrats will take them back in a tsunami of protest.

Once ensconced, it would take a Democratic majority approximately 30 seconds to begin impeachment proceedings selecting from an accumulating pile of lies, overreach and just plain sloppiness. That is, assuming Trump hasn’t already been shown the exit.

Or that he hasn’t declared martial law (all those anarchists, you know) and effectively silenced dissent. We’re already well on our way to the latter via Trump’s incessant attacks on the media — “among the most dishonest human beings on Earth” — and press secretary Sean Spicer’s rabid-chihuahua, daily press briefings. (Note to Sean: Whatever he’s promised you, it’s not worth becoming Melissa McCarthy’s punching bag. But really, don’t stop.)

With luck, and Cabinet-level courage that is not much in evidence, there’s a chance we won’t have to wait two long years, during which, let’s face it, anything could happen. In anticipation of circumstances warranting a speedier presidential replacement, wiser minds added Section 4 to the 25th Amendment, which removes the president if a majority of the Cabinet and the vice president think it necessary, i.e., if the president is injured or falls too ill to serve. Or, by extension, by being so incompetent — or not-quite-right — that he or she poses a threat to the nation and must be removed immediately and replaced by the vice president.

Aren’t we there, yet? 

Of course this is the woman who three months ago wrote this tripe that America would be "fine no matter who wins" so at this point I question her punditry, to put it mildly.

In all seriousness however, Parker's scenario is a dangerous and stupid fantasy.  Trump isn't going anywhere and the odds of the Dems winning back the Senate, let alone the House are next to zero. 

For the Senate, the Dems would have to defend all ten seats in Trump states, and pick off Dean Heller in Nevada and Jeff Flake in Arizona. And then, on top of all that, they would still have to win a blood red Senate seat to get to 51, where their best chance would be Utah.

In the House, the Dems would need something like a +10 or +12 generic congressional ballot to overcome massive GOP gerrymandering to win it back.

Yeah, anything's possible in a midterm, where the President's party usually loses a bunch of seats.  But the last two midterms were complete disasters for the Dems, and the turnout vastly favors the GOP.

Now if Trump tanks the economy by then, yes, this is a possibility. But the 25th Amendment solution is a farce.  What's far more likely to happen is that Trump gets us into a war, and the GOP's crackdown on civil liberties, voting rights, and the free press goes into full effect.

We're in for dark days ahead, and childish fantasies of us easily disposing of Trump must be put aside.  It's going to take sweat, work and most likely a lot of blood to free America from this regime.

New tag, as we need to get started: 2018 Elections.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

And the Flynn/Russia traitor story continues to grow, as CNN is now reporting from its sources that the "Trump dossier" details on conversations by the Trump team with foreign nationals is now being taken far more seriously by the FBI.

For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump's inauguration. 

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. 

Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.
But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump. 

The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement "greater confidence" in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say.

In other words, the meat of the dossier is looking more and more true.  Russian nationals were talking about being in contact with the Trump team multiple times, and the bigger realization here is that it wasn't just Mike Flynn doing the talking. The regime's reaction?

Reached for comment this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting." 

Spicer later called back and said, "This is more fake news. It is about time CNN focused on the success the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations. The President won the election because of his vision and message for the nation." 

Spokespeople for the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

US intelligence officials emphasize the conversations were solely between foreign nationals, including those in or tied to the Russian government, intercepted during routine intelligence gathering. 

"It's fake news, shut up" isn't the measured reaction of an innocent group here, guys.

Now, normally this kind of stuff would be classified and wouldn't see the light of day.  It's the NSA's job to record conversations between foreign nationals, because NSA.  But this is the US Intelligence Community basically admitting that "We've got these guys on tape talking about what they did and it backs up what this dossier says."

As much as the Trump regime and Putin want to make this story go away (and the Russians today are now offering up Edward Snowden as a prize to make sure it does) I'm thinking there's real, real damage here.

An NBC News report citing U.S. intelligence sources says Russia may consider handing over Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor turned whistle-blower, to the United States as a favor to President Trump.

NBC News, the only major news outlet to report the development at this point, wrote that "highly sensitive intelligence reports detailing Russian deliberations" suggest Russia is mulling over sending Snowden back to the U.S. as a favor to Trump. NBC News reported it is one of several tactics Russia could use to cozy up to the president.

Snowden called the report "irrefutable evidence" that he wasn't colluding with Russians, despite allegations from U.S. House members.

The Russians are offering up Eddie boy to the IC to make this go away.  That's a very valuable card to play.

Stay tuned.

Last Call For The Fraudster In Chief

Trump at this point will do anything to take the focus off his collapsing regime, now accusing NH Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of voter fraud in her win over Republican Kelly Ayotte in a meeting with senators on Capitol Hill.

President Donald Trump can’t stop—won’t stop—talking about the election.

On Thursday, during a meeting with 10 senators that was billed as a listening session about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, the president went off on a familiar tangent, suggesting again that he was a victim of widespread voter fraud despite the fact that he won the presidential election.

As soon as the door closed and the reporters allowed to observe for a few minutes had been ushered out, Trump began to talk about the election, participants said, triggered by the presence of former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who lost her reelection bid in November and is now working for Trump as a Capitol Hill liaison, or “Sherpa,” on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch.

The president claimed that he and Ayotte both would have been victorious in the Granite State if not for the “thousands” people who were “brought in on buses” from neighboring Massachusetts to “illegally” vote in New Hampshire.

According to one participant who described the meeting, “an uncomfortable silence” momentarily overtook the room.

Hillary Clinton narrowly won New Hampshire’s four electoral votes over Trump by nearly 3,000 votes. Ayotte’s margin of defeat was even slimmer: 743 votes.

Once again, Trump is accusing Democrats of perpetrating voter fraud with no evidence whatsoever.  The larger danger is that his indicates the Trump regime clearly plans to either introduce draconian national restrictions on voting, to use the Justice Department as a weapon against Democratic voters, or more likely, both.

As I've been saying, I expect millions to be disenfranchised under the Trump regime, if not tens of millions, in an effort to set up as many Republicans in state legislatures as possible in 2018 and 2020, and gerrymandering Democrats out of existence.

When a fascist keeps repeating an outright lie, it's something he intends to act on as if it were true.

Anti-Immigration Nation

So, I don't want to hear any more about Obama being the "Deporter-in-Chief" while Trump's ICE agents are already getting started on huge raids.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained scores of immigrants across the Los Angeles area in a massive deportation operation on Thursday, following President Donald Trump’s harsh executive order stepping up the crackdown of immigrants with criminal offenses living in the country illegally.

Advocates and lawyers said that ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents detained 134 immigrants at their workplaces and homes in a series of raids. They said that some people were picked up as “collateral arrest” after they opened their doors to agents who were not there to specifically arrest them. ICE agents allegedly requested to see identification from everyone and took in family members who were undocumented.

The immigration sweeps are believed to have taken place across Southern California in Santa Paula, Oxnard, Van Nuys, San Bernardino, and Downey.

As of Thursday night, the ICE agency denied that it had detained 100 immigrants, the original figure given by lawyers who said that the number comes from a list of immigrants apprehended at the ICE office in Los Angeles.

“Our operations are targeted and lead driven, prioritizing individuals who pose a risk to our communities,” ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice wrote in an email to ThinkProgress. She said officers conduct “routine” enforcement actions to arrest “known street gang members, child sex offenders, and deportable foreign nationals with significant drug trafficking convictions.”

Kice added that the agency prioritizes cases based on factors such as the person’s criminal and immigration history, “as well as the viability of the leads we have on the individual’s possible whereabouts.”

But advocates disagree. They say that this particular raid was not “routine” and that the immigrants detained did not pose a risk to their communities.

Routine immigration operations typically detain three to five people — but a sweep across seven counties to round up people appears to be a direct consequence of Trump’s recent executive order that gives broad power for agents to detain immigrants, advocates said.

Expect bigger raids, more often, and with the targets especially being undocumented parents of US citizens.  It's about fear now, fear and the threat that families will be destroyed.  Eventually these are going to get ugly, and the head-cracking will begin in earnest on these "collateral arrests".

Then the informing begins, and Trump divides us yet again.

Russian To Judgment, Con't

The Trump regime's massive Russian problem refuses to go away anytime soon, as it looks very much like Trump national security adviser Mike Flynn was making promises to Moscow well before the regime assumed power three weeks ago.

Weeks before President Trump’s inauguration, his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, discussed American sanctions against Russia, as well as areas of possible cooperation, with that country’s ambassador to the United States, according to current and former American officials.

Throughout the discussions, the message Mr. Flynn conveyed to the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak — that the Obama administration was Moscow’s adversary and that relations with Russia would change under Mr. Trump — was unambiguous and highly inappropriate, the officials said.

The accounts of the conversations raise the prospect that Mr. Flynn violated a law against private citizens’ engaging in diplomacy, and directly contradict statements made by Trump advisers. They have said that Mr. Flynn spoke to Mr. Kislyak a few days after Christmas merely to arrange a phone call between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Trump after the inauguration.

But current and former American officials said that conversation — which took place the day before the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia over accusations that it used cyberattacks to help sway the election in Mr. Trump’s favor — ranged far beyond the logistics of a post-inauguration phone call. And they said it was only one in a series of contacts between the two men that began before the election and also included talk of cooperating in the fight against the Islamic State, along with other issues.

The officials said that Mr. Flynn had never made explicit promises of sanctions relief, but that he had appeared to leave the impression it would be possible.

Mr. Flynn could not immediately be reached for comment about the converations, details of which were first reported by The Washington Post. Despite Mr. Flynn’s earlier denials, his spokesman told the Post that “while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

Remember that Christmas phone call Flynn had with Russian ambassador Kislyak?  That was a very pointed leak to the press last month that heavily implied that Flynn was cutting a deal, but the Trumpies walked away from it relatively unscathed.  This leak tells us what Flynn said, and it's a doozy.

During the Christmas week conversation, he urged Mr. Kislyak to keep the Russian government from retaliating over the coming sanctions — it was an open secret in Washington that they were in the works — by telling him that whatever the Obama administration did could be undone, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified material.

And it gets worse, because now that means that the Trump regime was lying when they said they didn't know anything about Flynn's conversation.

Days before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Vice President-elect Mike Pence also denied that Mr. Flynn had discussed sanctions with Mr. Kislyak. He said he had personally spoken to Mr. Flynn, who assured him that the conversation was an informal chat that began with Mr. Flynn extending Christmas wishes.

“They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States’ decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia,” Mr. Pence said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

Except we now know he did discuss just that.

Some officials regarded the conversation as a potential violation of the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments in disputes involving the American government, according to one current and one former American official familiar with the case.

Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call were surprised by Mr. Flynn’s comments, since he would have known that American eavesdroppers closely monitor such calls. They were even more surprised that Mr. Trump’s team publicly denied that the topics of conversation included sanctions.

The call is the latest example of how Mr. Trump’s advisers have come under scrutiny from American counterintelligence officials. The F.B.I. is also investigating Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign; and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.

The Trump regime lies because they know they can get away with it.  So far they have, and completely.  Will anyone care enough to call this what it is?

Flynn's a traitor, period.  And our government is owned by the Russians. I would expect that Flynn will be let go for the crime of lying to Pence, not for being an obvious traitor.  And that's only if the heat starts coming on Pence, which at this point is anyone's guess.

Odds are good that again, since Trump's base won't care, Trump won't care.  We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• In a unanimous 3-0 ruling the Trump regime lost its case to reinstate the Muslim travel ban before the 9th Circuit, an appeal to the Supreme Court is expected soon.
• Donald Trump spoke to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Thursday amid calls from the commander of US troops in Afghanistan for more advisors on the ground.
• The French interior ministry says they have arrested four in the town of Montpelier in connection with a planned terror attack on Paris.
• Ride-sharing giant Uber says it will fight new proposed tougher standards in Denmark for cabs and the Danish parliament may consider Uber an illegal taxi service. 
• The newest weapon in fighting cancer could be modified Salmonella bacteria designed to penetrate tumors and mark them for destruction by the body's immune system.

Last Call For That's Real White Of You, Con't

I'm tired of hearing excuses for Trump voters, guys.

I'm tired of having to find reasons to get along with people in positions of power who say things like this.

When Louisiana Judge Mike Erwin noticed a man share his seat with a black woman in crowded Baton Rouge, La., establishment Sammy’s Grill on Feb. 3, he allegedly spewed, “You should have made her get her fat nigger ass up.”

Kaneitra Johnson, a resident of Baton Rouge, shared her traumatic experience in a public Facebook post that has been shared 183 times to date. She went into even further detail with the Rouge Collection, stating:

“I’m halfway on the seat and the Lyft driver is on the other half of the seat,” Johnson said. “Then he asked for his jacket. All of a sudden I hear this older man behind me tell the Lyft driver, ‘You never give up your seat for a n*gger.’”
...
As Johnson and the driver sat side by side, the older man continues, “You should have made her get her fat n*gger a** up.” 

Johnson says that it was only after police arrived on the scene that she learned the racist white man in question was Judge Mike Erwin of Louisiana’s 19th Judicial District Court, which covers East Baton Rouge.

Guess the price of his meal was causing economic anxiety, right?

I'm tired of this, guys.  I'm tired of people asking me to forgive Trump voters and racist-ass white people in general, I'm tired of people asking me to continue to enable them through sympathy or empathy, when they have none for me or anyone who looks like me.  At this point the direct result of enabling them is a regime dedicated to disenfranchising me for the rest of my natural life.

I'm not exactly too concerned with the root cause.  Either by malice or by ignorance, the truly malicious are now in full control of this country again.  I'm fighting for my basic civil rights now.  I don't care how we got there anymore.  As a black man in a blood red state I'm only interested in survival and resistance.

Everything else takes a back seat.  Especially when these guys are local.

Amanda Lee says she is building an army and Ohio plays a key role in her plans.

As the national imperial commander for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Lee predicted last week that 2017 will bring a resurgence of her group's activity - public rallies, widespread pamphlet distribution, greater recruitment efforts - and a push in several targeted states, including Ohio. 

"We have people all over Ohio already. There is a large membership of Loyal White Knights there," she said in a phone interview during a dinner break from her job in North Carolina. "When things start going wrong, it's time for us to start retaliating. It's time for us to get active." 

Lee said she couldn't provide membership numbers despite the fact that members of her branch of the KKK pay monthly dues - $10 a person or $15 a couple - and that it calls itself the largest KKK faction in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks what it calls hate and extremist groups and combats discrimination through education and litigation, has acknowledged the Loyal White Knights has a significant Ohio presence. 

The Alabama-based law center said in its most-recent report that 34 such hate groups operate in Ohio, dividing them into categories, including KKK, black separatist, white nationalist, racist/skinhead, neo-Nazi and anti-LGBT. The center maps where the groups are based, including Ohio organizations such as the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement in Cleveland, the Nation of Islam in Columbus and the Supreme White Alliance in Cincinnati. 

Rick Zwayer, the director of Ohio Homeland Security, said it falls to every federal, state and local law enforcement officer to monitor extremist groups and to keep an eye out for those who might want to do harm to others.

An increasing amount of organizing happens online, however, including for the world's most-visited white supremacist website, the Daily Stormer, which is run by central Ohio native Andrew Anglin. Anglin's specific whereabouts are unknown these days but, at least until recently, donations to his website were directed to a Worthington business address associated with his father.

Especially when the new regime is happily announcing that they will drop the focus on these groups now so that they can grow and thrive again.

Do not ask me to understand them again.

The Abortion War's Front Line Is Now Ohio

Ohio is no longer a swing state by any means.  It's a blood-red Midwestern state with 11.7 million people in it, the 7th largest in the country by population.  And it's the new front line in the War or Women as the state's GOP super-majority in both chambers of the state legislature, "moderate" GOP Gov. John Kasich, the Trump regime are all focusing on groups like Ohio Right To Life as the next test run vehicle to effectively end abortion.

Ohio Right to Life has unveiled sweeping initiatives for the two-year legislative session, six measures the organization's leaders say would build on a series of recent successes and continue its strategy of chipping away at abortion rights while working toward a complete ban. 

The latest push follows passage in December of a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, the most recent of 18 abortion restrictions enacted since Kasich took office in 2011. Others from past Right to Life priority lists include banning public hospitals from providing non-therapeutic abortions and requiring abortion clinics to have transfer agreements with a local hospital. 

The centerpiece of its agenda for this two-year session is proposed legislation to outlaw a commonly used second-trimester abortion procedure, dilation and evacuation, which accounted for about 3,000 of the nearly 21,000 abortions performed in Ohio in 2015, according to the state Health Department. 

"The No. 1 issue, which is part of our national strategy, is a dismemberment ban," said Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life. "We would be the eighth state to enact one." 

Calling the procedure "barbaric" and "inhumane," Gonidakis said the proposal would have an exception only to save the mother's life. The ban would apply only to women seeking to terminate their pregnancy and not impact those who may require the procedure following a miscarriage. 

Critics argue the proposal would make it more difficult to obtain a second-term abortion. They note that the American Medical Association recognizes the procedure as among the safest ways to terminate pregnancy after 14 weeks, and it accounts for most second-term abortions. 

"Ohio Right to Life doesn't care about women's health," said Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio.

"There is not a single thing in their agenda that improves women's health; in fact, the new restrictions they are proposing will interfere with the doctor-patient relationship and prevent women from accessing the care that is best for themselves and their families. The goal of Ohio Right to Life is clear - to invoke shame and stigma against women who access abortion, and to punish the medical professionals that care for them."

Right to Life also is pushing bills that would: require burial or cremation of aborted fetuses; ban abortions based on diagnosis of Down syndrome; limit women's access to abortion-inducing pills; and prohibit the sale or receipt of compensation of any sort for fetal tissue or remains. In addition, the group is seeking additional tax funding for pregnancy centers across Ohio. It has received $500,000 in each of the past two years. 

The proposals, Gonidakis said, are part of an "incremental, transparent approach" toward outlawing abortions.

Texas was the prototype, but Ohio looks to be the finished product for an agenda that will effectively shutter the state's abortion providers and leave millions of women in the state with no safe options for an abortion procedure.

Burying women, doctors, clinics, nurses and hospitals under burdens until the procedure cannot legally be performed?  That's the plan.

Most likely it will work, especially once Neil Gorsuch is confirmed.  I just don't expect Democrats to even put up a fight at this point.  I don't know what it will take at this point.

Check that.  I do know what it will take, and that's voters throwing out the GOP across America.  But the odds of that happening when the Trump regime now stands to disenfranchise tens of millions of Democrats will grow slimmer by the day.

By 2018 it may not matter at all.

A Dark Sessions In American History

So Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a man so racist that Reagan-era Republicans blocked him from the federal bench, is now Trump's AG.  The damage that Republicans have caused to the Voting Rights Act, civil rights in general, and immigration should be considered at this point to be irreparable.

Sessions will take that single-mindedness to the Justice Department, where he will likely be Trump’s most trusted and powerful cabinet secretary. As attorney general, he will oversee the country’s massively backlogged immigration court system, where judges decide which undocumented immigrants will face deportation. And he’s expected to make significant changes to the priorities of the department’s Civil Rights Division. Under Obama, the division investigated police departments that faced accusations of systemic racial bias. Under Sessions, those investigations will likely be a much lower priority.

Under Sessions, anyone who isn't a white, Christian Republican will be a "much lower priority".

Meanwhile, Sessions is being replaced in the Senate by state GOP AG Luther Strange.  Did I mention Strange was investigating Alabama GOP Gov. Robert Bentley, who just named Strange to the position?

According to Alabama law, the Governor of the state will name a temporary replacement before the seat is filled in a special election.

On such a day as the governor may direct, unless vacancy occurs between 2 and 4 months before the next regularly-scheduled general election, in which case it is held at that election. If vacancy occurs within 60 days of the next regularly-scheduled general election, a special election must be held on the first Tuesday after 60 days have elapsed since the vacancy occurred. 

The Governor has said he won’t order a special election held this year. 

Complicating matters somewhat is the state’s Governor, Republican Robert Bentley is currently in the middle of a personal scandal.

Bentley’s campaign finance report filed Tuesday shows the governor’s campaign paid more than $320,000 in legal bills in 2016. 

Bentley faced an impeachment push and an ethics complaint after he was accused of having an affair with his former political adviser. The governor has acknowledged personal mistakes, but maintained he did nothing legally wrong. 

What’s complicating matters greatly is Bentley’s reported top choice to replace Sessions, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, appears to be investigating the Governor.

Citing three Republicans close to the matter, Politico said Strange has plans to travel to Washington, D.C. this week to interview possible Senate office staffers.
…
Strange’s possible appointment is mired in controversy. Last year, he asked the House committee investigating Bentley’s relationship with former staffer Rebekah Caldwell Mason to suspend its proceedings while his office conducts “necessary related work.”
Strange has not confirmed if his office is investigating Bentley. 

If Strange becomes a Senator the Bentley would name his replacement as state Attorney General.

Strange will be named to the seat today.  And the swamp draining continues.  Sessions backs Trump early, gets his dream job as AG, Bentley sends Strange up as his replacement and kills the investigation against himself, and gets to name a replacement AG who of course will close the probe.

Because this is how America works in the Trump regime era.

StupidiNews!

• Schools and businesses from DC to New York to Boston are closed as a major snowstorm could put the Mid-Atlantic and New England states under more than a foot of snow.
• In a 52-47 vote, the Senate has confirmed Jeff Sessions as Trump's Attorney General, the vote was entirely along party lines save for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, who voted with the GOP.
• Opening statements are expected today in the Nevada trial over the 2014 armed standoff at the Bundy Ranch, Cliven Bundy and five others face conspiracy, weapons, and assault charges.
• Sweden may actually have too much renewable energy online, the market for the country's green power investments has crashed hard over the last four months.
• The House Science Committee is taking aim at climate science and the EPA, with GOP Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas outright accusing NOAA scientists of manipulating data.

Forget It Jake, It's Trumptown

I've had my disagreements with the mostly harmless Jake Tapper, but it seems the Trump Regime has finally made him self-aware, that as a voice in political media that he has a platform to demand basic truths from the White House.

Of course, dissent is not tolerated in the Trump era.  Even the chuckleheads at Politico 2.0 Axios have figured that part out.

A source with direct knowledge tells Axios that Republican operatives were urging at least one conservative-friendly website to write Jake Tapper hit pieces yesterday after his hard-hitting interview with Kellyanne Conway.

This is hardly shocking, and happens all the time, but in this weaponized political-media environment it could get nasty fast. 

Why go after him: A central part of Team Trump's strategy is discrediting the mainstream media. CNN is his top target, with the New York Times a close second. Jake Tapper is the network's star interviewer, and he's been giving the most aggressive interrogations of Team Trump for months now.

As good ol' TBogg points out, there's a method to this madness.

“I think she has a point in that the media is more aggressive,” Tapper explained. “But I think that there is a good reason for it and it’s exactly what you just said. The stakes are much higher. He’s the president of the United States. a comment he makes about Boeing will affect Boeing’s stock. A comment he makes about a judge, who knows what could happen? A comment he makes trying to discredit the entire media could actually have an effect on things. What a president says is more important than a candidate.” 

And that's the key.  Tapper is saying that holy crap, Trump should be held accountable by the press for his massive lies.  Since the whole point is for Trump to brutally discredit his critics, Tapper saying that he'll start calling out the Trump regime can't be tolerated for long.

I fully expect Trump to call for Tapper's head.  Whether or not he gets it will go pretty far in deciding if we still have an even basically functioning media.

Inventing Terror

As bad as it is, it's one thing for Trump regime NSC mouthpiece Kellyanne Conway to make up terror attacks in order to justify executive orders.  It's another thing entirely for Trump's White House press secretary Sean Spicer to do it at an official press briefing.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly pointed to Atlanta, along with San Bernardino and Boston, as one of three U.S. cities that have been attacked by Islamist terrorists to argue that the Trump administration needed to act quickly to prevent another attack in the future.

While the Boston bombing and shootings in San Bernadino were both carried out by Islamist terrorists, neither involved foreign nationals from the seven countries in Trump’s executive order. There has never been an Islamist terror attack in Atlanta.

In a Jan. 29 appearance on ABC’s This Week, Spicer explained to Martha Raddatz that the White House needed to implement its executive order quickly, before another terror attack could take place. “What do we say to the family that loses somebody over a terroristic (sic), to whether it’s Atlanta or San Bernardino or the Boston bomber?”

Spicer used a similar line the following day on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, when The New York Times’ Jeremy Peters asked him if President Trump had signed the executive order as the result of an imminent terror threat on U.S. soil. “Too many of these cases that have happened, whether you’re talking about San Bernardino, Atlanta, they’ve happened, Boston,” Spicer said. “Jeremy, what—do you wait until you do? The answer is we act now to protect the future.”

At the White House press briefing later that day, Spicer again pointed to Atlanta to explain the need for the “extreme vetting” provided in the White House’s executive order.

“I don’t think you have to look any further than the families of the Boston Marathon, in Atlanta, in San Bernardino to ask if we can go further,” Spicer said. “There’s obviously steps that we can and should be taking, and I think the president is going to continue do to what he can to make sure that this country is as safe as possible.”

Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, said Atlanta should not be included.

“There has not been a successful jihadi terror attack in Atlanta,” Hughes said.

Again, a White House willing to repeatedly create a terrorist attack out of whole cloth in order to justify political action is a White House willing to lie to the American people about everything else. Why Spicer still gets coverage, I couldn't tell you at this point.  News outfits need to just walk away and explain to viewers and readers that the White House can no longer be trusted with even basic facts at this point.

StupidiNews!

• A GOP Senate censure of Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren for reading Coretta Scott King's 1986 letter against the confirmation of Sen. Jeff Sessions is rallying Democrats.
• San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will offer free community college to residents as a way to narrow the city's wealth inequality gap.
• The Trump regime is agreeing to work with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to battle ISIS militants in neighboring Syria, according to Turkish sources.
• First Lady Melania Trump is suing Britain's Daily Mail for $150 million over libel for what Trump terms "tremendous harm" to the Melania Trump product brand.
• FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is defending the commission's decision to stop some carriers from joining a low-cost broadband program, saying that 99% of program carriers are eligible.

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

And as expected, VP Mike Pence broke the tie today on the confirmation of GOP megadonor Betsy DeVos's bid to buy a cabinet seat, and she will be Education Secretary.

The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education by the slimmest of margins, capping off a rocky, high-stakes fight for President Trump's pick. 

Vice President Pence cast the rare deciding vote on DeVos, breaking a 50-50 tie after Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski(Alaska) became the first senators to oppose a Trump Cabinet pick, joining all Democrats. 

Pence is the first vice president ever to cast a decisive vote on a Cabinet nominee. The last time a VP broke a tie in the Senate was 2008, when then-Vice President Dick Cheney voted on a tax adjustment plan. 

Pence arrived at the Capitol around approximately 11:30 a.m., but waited in the wings until the vote was tied at 50-50 to take over the presiding chair and cast the deciding vote. 

The vice president — and former lawmaker — chatted with GOP senators on the floor after the vote, and shook hands with Sen. Ted Cruz. 

Pence is expected to meet with Senate Republicans during their closed-door weekly policy lunch on Tuesday afternoon. 

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a failed 11th-hour plea Tuesday morning for a third Republican to buck the party and sink DeVos's nomination. 

“It’s the Republican side demanding a vote for an unqualified candidate,” the Senate’s top Democrat said. “I hope against hope that another Republican will have the courage … [to] join us.” 

Schumer suggested Republicans are privately saying they wish Trump picked someone else, calling DeVos a “negative trifecta.”

But good news everyone, my own Congressman Thomas Massie has a solution to DeVos!

I just introduced a bill to abolish the federal Dept of Education: https://t.co/hcYr2QzIfI #EndFedEd

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) February 7, 2017

Won't that be fun?