Last Call For Shutdown Countdown

Senate vote to keep the government open failed.  Republicans couldn’t even get 50 votes from their own caucus to pass the House GOP bill, so a shutdown at his point seems inevitable. Five Democrats voted for the cloture measure: McCaskill, Heitkamp, Manchin, Donnelly and Doug Jones, but cloture needed 60 votes and Republicans Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, Jeff Flake and (of course) Rand Paul voted against it.

GOP just shut down the government.

Awesome.

Just A Steel Clown Guy On A Saturday Night

Steel workers in the Rust Belt voted for Trump because of "economic anxiety" and whatnot, abandoning the Dems in the hope that The Donald would treat blue-collar union workers better than the black guy did a couple years ago.  Turns out that the steel industry lined up to be the among the first shafted by Trump's promises.

The president of the United Steelworkers union says the group is "terribly disappointed" with President Trump, who he says has done nothing to protect American jobs since taking office last January.

In an interview with CNN, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard said that American workers are in some ways worse off now than they were just a year ago.

"We're terribly disappointed and hugely frustrated," Gerard told CNN. "There's been no action that has done anything to protect and defend American jobs. ... In some cases we're worse off now than we were then."Chief among Gerard's concerns is the Trump administration's investigation, announced last April, into steel and aluminum imports from China and other countries suspected of violating trade practices.

At the time, Trump called the investigation “a historic day for American steel and, most importantly, for American steelworkers," and predicted that his administration would take action stemming from the investigation by the summer. So far, no action has been taken.

Part of the Trump administration's dialing back of pressure on China has been due to North Korean aggression, which Trump hopes China will help the U.S. solve.

To recap, Trump's stupid belligerence only made things worse with North Korea, and then Trump screwed over US steelworkers to make China happy so that they would agree to help him clean up his mess with Pyongyang.

But hey Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, this is the guy you voted for, who would save US steel jobs because the Democrats were too busy helping those people and not you.  Well, guess what?  Trump always screws over the people he works with, and we warned you that would happen.  You didn't listen, because you hated Hillary more than you loved common sense.

Now you've been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency in under a year.

Still think he'll make your America great again?

The Next Flipping Point

Republican Tim Murphy resigned from the House late last year after an ugly scandal involving multiple affairs and an abortion and the special election to replace him is the next major political contest in 2018 and it's one the Democrats can definitely win.

After a shocking win in a rural Wisconsin senate race Tuesday, Democrats are feeling increasingly bullish they can win another target deep in Trump territory, flip their first House seat since Trump’s 2016 victory and strike fear into the hearts of Republicans across the country. 

Their target: a blue-collar southwestern Pennsylvania House seat recently vacated by disgraced former Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) in territory national Democrats haven’t seriously contested this decade.

Strategists in both parties see a surprisingly close race developing in the district ahead of the March 13 special election. After some major investments, Republicans are pulling out the big guns on Thursday: A visit from President Trump himself, who will hold an official event on the district’s edges where he’s expected to boost the Republican candidate. 

“Clearly there’s a lot of intensity and energy on the Democratic side and they’ve outperformed their recent numbers in other special elections. We’ve got to take this very, very seriously,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) told TPM. “I do think we are taking this seriously and I think we’re going to win, but we’re not going to be asleep at the switch.” 

Republicans know a loss in this deep-red, blue-collar district after blowing an Alabama Senate race, getting crushed in Virginia’s gubernatorial race and losing more than 30 statehouse seats in the past year would further alarm their party — and be a sign that the 2018 Democratic wave might be large enough to drown some members who never thought they’d even need to swim. 

“If we lost that race, it’d be quite an earthquake. I don’t know if I’d say on the scale of Alabama, but it’d be close,” one Pennsylvania Republican congressman told TPM.
Republicans have reason for concern.

Democrats have landed a top-notch recruit in Conor Lamb, a 33-year-old former Marine and federal prosecutor whose family is a Democratic powerhouse in the Pittsburgh area. Republicans have by their own account nominated a somewhat lackluster candidate, dubbed “not Jack Kennedy” by one national Republican. State Rep. Rick Saccone (R) is a conservative firebrand who’s known as a weak fundraiser. 

That matchup, paired with white-hot opposition to the president from the left, has created a single-digit race, according to private polling from both sides. And while Democrats admit it’s an uphill battle in the GOP-friendly district, they’re feeling bullish that they can pull off an upset that would prove they can win in rural, populist terrain. 

“I think he’s going to win,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) told TPM Monday night, calling it “a very strong indicator of a good year” for Democrats that the race is competitive.

I think Conor Lamb has an excellent chance, and the reason why is Trump's absolute failure in Steel Country.  The GOP isn't taking chances after Tuesday's disaster and Roy Moore's crash and burn.  They think Trump will help, so Trump will be on the road "helping" them.

More on Steel Country this afternoon. Trump is very vulnerable there and it's why he wants to scrap NAFTA.

StupidiNews!

• House Republicans passed a stopgap spending bill but the measure doesn't have the votes in the Senate, setting up a potential partial government shutdown at midnight tonight.
• The Supreme Court has blocked a lower court ruling forcing North Carolina Republicans to redraw congressional voting district maps, reducing the chance of a map redraw in 2018.
• An Ivory Coast court has sentenced an advisor to ex-President Laurent Gbagbo to 15 years in prison for his role in the planned 2012 military coup to oust President Alassane Ouattara.
• Without "concrete progress" in NAFTA negotiations next week in Montreal, the US will leave the free trade agreement completely, according to Trump regime sources.
• NASA has pulled Astronaut Jeannette Epps from her June flight to the ISS, Epps would have been the first African-American woman to join the ISS crew.

Last Call For Russian To Judgment, Con't

Pretty sure we've hit peak collusion at this point in the cycle, guys.

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. 

FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said. 

It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections. 

It’s unclear how long the Torshin inquiry has been ongoing, but the news comes as Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sweeping investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including whether the Kremlin colluded with Trump’s campaign, has been heating up. 

All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Mueller’s investigation is confidential and mostly involves classified information. 

A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined comment.

You have to admit, Russians funneling money to Trump through the NRA is about the maximum GOP in GOP scandal. And this isn't the first time Alexander Torshin's name has come up in the Russian collusion investigation, either.

Allegations of collusion continued to pile up against Donald Trump Jr. this week, with the New York Times reporting Friday that the first son went to a May 2016 dinner attended by a top Russian official who was trying to set up a covert meeting with the campaign.

NBC News confirmed Saturday that Donald Trump Jr. talked with Alexander Torshin, a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the deputy head of the country's central bank, at an event hosted by the National Rifle Association in Kentucky. But the first son's lawyer insisted the duo didn't sit together.

Don Jr. met with Torshin at an NRA event in 2016 right here in Kentucky.  Hmmm.  Jared Kushner is linked to the same NRA event too.

President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, failed to disclose what lawmakers called a "Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite" involving a banker who has been accused of links to Russian organized crime, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News. 

An email chain described Aleksander Torshin, a former senator and deputy head of Russia's central bank who is close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as wanting Trump to attend an event on the sidelines of a National Rifle Association convention in Louisville, Kentucky, in May 2016, the sources said. The email also suggests Torshin was seeking to meet with a high-level Trump campaign official during the convention, and that he may have had a message for Trump from Putin, the sources said.

Torshin has quite the reputation internationally, it turns out.  He's been in Washington DC a lot, lately, like the time he tried to meet Trump himself at the National Prayer Breakfast last spring.

The leader of the delegation, central bank Deputy Chairman Alexander Torshin, a former senator who laughs off Spanish claims that he’s a crime boss, was even hoping to shake hands with Trump, an old acquaintance. But the White House nixed the meet-and-greet at the last minute without explanation, according to two Russians familiar with the matter. 

The brief meeting Torshin was due to have with Trump was canceled after a White House aide realized the Russian had been suspected of being a mafia “godfather,” Yahoo News reported, citing five people it didn’t identify. 

The White House said a meeting with Torshin at the National Prayer Breakfast was never on Trump’s agenda. 

Torshin declined to elaborate on his trip, saying only that he’s been to the annual event 12 times. In an interview with Bloomberg last year, the gun enthusiast said he’s known Trump for five years and the two men last had a jovial exchange at the National Rifle Association convention in Tennessee in 2015, just before the future president announced his run for the White House.

Spanish cops pretty much know he's a mobbed up, and rather deep.

On February 1, Alexander Porfirievich Torshin, 63, a Russian politician and banker who is close to Vladimir Putin and whom the Spanish anti-corruption prosecutor and the Civil Guard define in their reports as a godfather from a notorious Russian mafia organization, had in his diary for the next day an appointment to meet in Washington with the world’s most powerful man: Donald Trump. The encounter was due to take place before an official and well-attended breakfast meeting, which Torshin attended as the head of a Russian delegation. The meeting was canceled that very night, according to sources from the White House, given the wave of criticism in the US press related to the influence of certain Russian circles in President Trump’s power teams. But the information reveals the heights to which this person, who has been investigated by the Spanish authorities, had reached in his rise to the upper echelons of the American leader’s circle.

Now the FBI is investigating Torshin and any illegal campaign contributions he may have made to the NRA.  Better believe Mueller knows far more about this subject than the story lets on, too.

Stay tuned.

Shutdown Countdown, Con't

There seems to be little chance that parts of the US federal government will be operating on Saturday. House Republicans can't get their act together, Senate Republicans don't have the votes either, and Trump is all over the place on what he may or may not do, calling the current proposal "horrible" and saying he won't sign it.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday aligned himself solidly with conservative Republicans on immigration, criticizing a proposed bipartisan deal as “horrible” on U.S. border security and “very, very weak” on reforms for the legal immigration system.

The Senate proposal - aimed at addressing Democrats’ demands for protections for young adults brought to the United States illegally as children and dubbed “Dreamers” - fell far short of what most Republicans believe needs to happen, the president said.

“It’s the opposite of what I campaigned for,” Trump told Reuters in an interview.

The plan was presented to Trump last week by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

Trump drew international condemnation after reports emerged that he had questioned the value of taking immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean nation of Haiti during a closed-door meeting with lawmakers at the White House last Thursday, referring to them as “shithole” countries.

Trump has denied using that word. Trump in the interview on Wednesday declined to say what specific words he used.

“I‘m not going to get into what I said, but I will tell you, it was a tough meeting,” Trump said.

Many Democrats have said they will not vote for spending legislation to keep the federal government funded past a Friday deadline without an immigration deal, and Republicans will need at least some Democratic votes to pass the funding extension in the Senate.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to try to help a deal along, but Kelly basically told them to go make tortillas or something, and it did not go well.

In a sign of the new low bar set for policy talks in Washington, several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus insisted to TPM that their meeting with Kelly never became heated or devolved into profanity. But neither did it give them a clear path forward on eleventh-hour negotiations around the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“The problem is not the ability to have a cordial conversation, the problem is having a substantive conversation where we learn what the administration wants in return for saving the DREAMers,” Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) complained in Spanish as he exited the meaning. “I didn’t get a sense that the administration has a clear bottom line.”

Menendez added that, while unclear, the White House’s demands seemed to be “way beyond” what is realistic.

“What they want in return [for DACA] is a continuously moving target, and it continuously expands,” he said, in English. “Interior enforcement, more border patrol, a wall, asylum reform—these are the type of things we talked about for a comprehensive immigration package that covered broader 11 million undocumented people. The administration continues to seem to want everything Democrats were willing to give in the process of considering comprehensive reform just for these 700,000 young people [under DACA]. But holding them hostage to that type of view is simply not acceptable.”

In the meeting, members said, they pushed Kelly to narrow the scope of a deal, putting aside the President’s previous demandsfor terminating the diversity lottery visa program and for dramatically cutting back on family reunification programs, and focusing instead just on DACA paired with some form of border security. Kelly did not agree to this framework, the lawmakers said, though he “listened respectfully.”

At this point, Trump doesn't even know what Trump wants, so there's not going to be a deal until somebody talks the old man into it.

Meanwhile come Monday a lot of Americans are going to suffer most likely.  There's still a possibility that we could go through a short-term punt into next month, but at this point who knows.

Spiking The Storm

So the story broke over the weekend (from the Wall Street Journal, no less) that Donald Trump allegedly had an affair with a porn star named Stormy Daniels in 2016, allegations that probably would have made a difference in the election.  Affairs aren't illegal (and certainly aren't anything new in politics) but Daniels alleges that Trump's lawyers payed her a pretty large sum of money ($130,000) to keep quiet about the affair ahead of the election, which makes this a much larger deal.

This story gets a whole lot worse as it turns out news outlets knew about the affair and the payoff, and spiked the story.  And of course the biggest news outlet that knew was FOX News.

Fox News had a story at the height of the presidential election that detailed an alleged sexual relationship between porn actress Stephanie Clifford -- whose stage name is "Stormy Daniels" -- and Donald Trump, but opted not to publish it, four people familiar with the matter told CNN. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Trump attorney Michael Cohen had arranged a $130,000 payment to keep Clifford silent about the alleged relationship in October 2016. Cohen, Clifford, and the White House denied the report. 

The allegation of a relationship was no secret to Fox News, though. 

One of the network's reporters, Diana Falzone, had filed a story in October 2016 about an alleged sexual relationship between Clifford and Trump, people familiar with the matter said. 

Falzone had an on-the-record statement from Clifford's manager at the time, Gina Rodriguez, confirming that her client had engaged in a sexual relationship with Trump, three of these people said, and Falzone had even seen emails about a settlement. 

But the story never saw the light of the day, to the frustration of Falzone, two of the people said. 

"She had the story and Fox killed it," one of the people familiar with the matter told CNN. 

Falzone is a reporter for Fox News who frequently covers celebrity news and issues related to sexual harassment. She filed a lawsuit against the network in May 2017 alleging gender discrimination. Fox News has denied her allegations and the case is ongoing.

It gets worse.  Falzone wasn't the only reporter who tracked this story down.  Slate's Jacob Weisberg fully admits he followed this story before the election.

Daniels said she was talking to me and sharing these details because Trump was stalling on finalizing the confidentiality agreement and paying her. Given her experience with Trump, she suspected he would stall her until after the election, and then refuse to sign or pay up. 

As an alternative to being paid for her silence, Daniels wanted to be paid for her story. She thought it might come out anyway, as one version did on the website the Smoking Gun in October 2016. (The site reported the allegation that Trump and Daniels had an affair, not that they had negotiated a settlement.) Daniels said she wanted, in her words, something to show for her experience. Another motivation to go public, she said, was her anger about Trump’s newfound opposition to abortion and gay marriage. 

I told Daniels that Slate did not pay sources but encouraged her to come forward without compensation. I proposed interviewing her on Trumpcast and writing her story. She never said yes and never said no. Late in the discussion, I asked a Slate colleague to help me verify her account. We both spoke to Daniels and to Gina Rodriguez, a former porn actress turned agent, who Daniels was using to negotiate with media organizations. I gathered that Daniels was also discussing going public on Good Morning America. At one point she considered holding a press conference in Dallas, where she lives. 

And then, about a week before the election, Daniels stopped responding to calls and text messages. A friend of hers told me Daniels had said she’d taken the money from Trump after all. I considered publishing the story without her cooperation. After all, she had never said anything was off the record. But if I did so, she would presumably disavow what she had told me, and the only people I had corroborating her story were sources Daniels herself had pointed me to. For the most important aspect of the story—the contract for her silence—I also lacked independent corroboration. 

Around the time Daniels went silent, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece headlined “National Enquirer Shielded Donald Trump From Playboy Model’s Affair Allegation.” That story, which was published four days before Election Day, revealed that American Media—whose CEO is Trump’s friend David Pecker—had seemingly paid Karen McDougal $150,000 for her silence. For any other politician, a scandal like this would be career-ending. But in the run-up to the election, the Journal story had little impact.

So both FOX and Slate knew.  If Daniels was actively shopping her story, it's possible other news outlets knew about the story too...but in every case it was spiked and lost in the noise.

Trump could have basically gotten away with anything in the election run up to November 2016.

And he did.  Our media helped him do just that.

StupidiNews!

• House Republicans plan to vote on a measure Thursday to keep the government open but there is little sign that they actually have the votes to pass anything without Democrats.
• The Trump regime is moving to end a program to bring Haitian workers to the US after 2010's earthquake, the Department of Homeland Security says the program is no longer needed. 
• Donald Trump is denying that the US embassy in Israel will be moved to Jerusalem by the end of 2018 in a split with Israeli PM Netanyahu who was expecting the move later this year.
• Trump is touting his tax law as the reason why Apple has announced a plan to move billions in cash from offshore to the US along with a new domestic customer service headquarters.
• The latest big project from Nintendo is Labo, a system that will combine the portable Switch console and controllers with software and cardboard build kits.

Last Call For The Blue Wave Rising, Con't

In 2017, Dems had mixed success in special elections in deep red areas of the country.  Yes, they managed to push back in places where Trump won by 10 or 20 points (or more) and come very close to winning, but Republicans could also say that the Dems couldn't seal the deal and that the GOP would merely suffer "traditional" midterm losses, not a 2010- or 2014-style midterm tsunami that would crush the GOP the way Dems hemorrhaged House, gubernatorial and state legislature seats in those years.  As bad as that would be for the GOP, they could console themselves with the notion of a lot of safe Republican seats that would still be above water when the wave crashed upon them in November.

That was at least the special election story before yesterday, when Republicans in Wisconsin promptly lost a state Senate seat in a district Trump won by 17 points.

Democrats snagged a GOP-leaning state Senate seat in western Wisconsin on Tuesday, buoying progressive hopes that they could ride a wave of victory this fall.

Patty Schachtner, the chief medical examiner for St. Croix County, will take the seat that had been held for 17 years by former Sen. Sheila Harsdorf (R-River Falls). Harsdorf stepped down in November to take a job as GOP Gov. Scott Walker's agriculture secretary. 

In an interview, Schachtner said she thought she beat state Rep. Adam Jarchow (R-Balsam Lake) because the race had turned nasty in mailings from groups outside the district. 

“It wasn’t nice. It was mean,” she said of the campaign literature. “People just said, ‘You know what? We’re nicer than that.’” 

In a post on Twitter, Jarchow said he had called Schachtner to congratulate her.
“I look forward to working with her as our new state Senator,” he wrote in his tweet. “Thank you to all who worked so hard for our campaign.”

Also Tuesday, in special elections for the state Assembly, voters in Washington County chose a Republican and voters in Racine County chose a Democrat, according to unofficial results.

But the focus Tuesday was on the 10th Senate District, which consists of parts of Burnett, Polk, St. Croix, Pierce and Dunn counties along Minnesota's border.

Schachtner's win gives Democrats momentum, but they remain deep in the minority. Once she is seated, Republican will hold an 18-14 advantage, with one district vacant. That seat belonged to Sen. Frank Lasee (R-De Pere), who joined Walker's administration last month, and won't be decided until November, when 17 of the state's 33 Senate districts are up for election.

This is a state legislature seat that never should have been in doubt in Scott Walker's red Wisconsin.  And nobody panicked faster than Walker himself.

Walker, who had tweeted earlier Tuesday urging residents of the 10th Senate district to get to the polls and vote for Republican Adam Jarchow, wrote online after the race had been decided that “Senate District 10 special election win by a Democrat is a wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin” who must do a better job touting their record to voters. 

“WAKE UP CALL: Can’t presume that voters know we are getting positive things done in Wisconsin. Help us share the good news,” the governor wrote in a subsequent post, adding in two others that the state’s GOP also can’t presume voters are aware “that more people are working than ever before” and that “we invested more actual dollars into schools than ever before.”

It's only getting worse for the party of Trump and they know it.

Meanwhile In Bevinstan...

GOP Gov. Matt Bevin's austerity regime will come to fruition (or in this case, rot) in 2018 and voters here seem wholly uninterested in stopping him.  First, he finally dropped the other shoe on killing Medicaid expansion yesterday, taunting health advocacy groups who have promised to take him to court. Bevin says without blinking that he will take health care away from ten percent of the state if the courts dare find his new Medicaid work rules unconstitutional.

Gov. Matt Bevin has issued an executive order that would strip Medicaid coverage from nearly half a million Kentuckians should his proposed overhaul of the federal-state health plan be struck down in court. 

No one has filed a legal challenge to Bevin's changes to Kentucky's Medicaid program that federal authorities approved Friday. 

But several advocacy groups have said some of the changes — such as requiring some "able-bodied" adults to work or volunteer at least 20 hours a week — likely will be challenged in court because they violate federal law that establishes Medicaid purely as a health program and does not authorize work requirements. 

Advocates who criticized Bevin's overhaul of Kentucky's Medicaid program were also critical of the executive order he issued Friday, the same day the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved his plan to reshape Medicaid in Kentucky.

"Is the Governor of Kentucky saying that if he is caught doing something illegal, he will take health care away from hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who have done nothing wrong?" asked Leonardo Cuello, director of health policy for the National Health Law Program. 

Cuello's Washington-based health advocacy group is considering a legal challenge to Bevin's plan.

Ahh, but if you think Bevin is bluffing, you should see his 2018 austerity budget proposal that cuts billions from education, infrastructure, and eliminates 70 social programs in the state over the next two years.

Gov. Matt Bevin on Tuesday night proposed a budget that he said would eliminate 70 state programs and cut spending at most agencies by 6.25 percent while fully funding state pension plans.

And the governor gave a high priority in the lean spending plan to the main public school funding program known as SEEK (Support Education Excellence in Kentucky), saying its funding will not be cut.

"The real budget focus this year is getting our financial house in order," Bevin told a joint meeting of the Kentucky House and Senate in an hourlong State of the Commonwealth and budget address.

The key step in doing that, he said, is by fully funding the hundreds of millions of dollars more that he said are needed by state retirement systems, which are $43 billion in debt.

Bevin's budget does not anticipate tax reform, but the governor said that issue remains a priority. He said if tax reform cannot pass in the current regular session, he will push that a special session later in the year.

In his speech, Bevin did not identify any of the 70 programs to be eliminated. He said they were "scattered throughout state government." A briefing released by his administration during the speech said the budget closes the state's film incentive program to new applicants.

He said the eliminations result in massive savings that minimized cuts to other parts of state government, where cuts much deeper than 6.25 percent were feared.

Some areas of the budget would get an increase, like social worker, adoption programs and opioid abuse prevention, but dozens of higher education, arts, teacher recruiting, agriculture, job training, scholarships, environmental, library aid, rural hospital and women's programs would be eliminated entirely, and of course the billions in cuts across the board for just about everything left.

And of course "tax reform" means Bevin wants to go the full Brownback and eliminate the state's income tax on businesses and put the tax burden squarely on workers with new sales and vice taxes.  It's Kansas all over again, only with a massive state pension problem hanging over everyone to boot. Not even Brownback wanted complete austerity, he just tried to wreck roads and schools.
 
If you're wondering what the post-Obama GOP austerity agenda looks like without Trump's ego mucking things up, Kentucky in 2018 is the place where you want to look.

Coming soon to a state near you if the GOP has its way.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

Yesterday former Trump strategist Steve Bannon blew off the House Intelligence Committee in his closed door meeting with them, prompting a subpoena which Bannon blew off again, citing executive privilege.  Today we know why: Bannon is already talking to Robert Mueller.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon broke some bad news to House investigators Tuesday, announcing that the White House had invoked executive privilege to keep him from answering many of their questions. 

But executive privilege—the president’s right to keep certain information from the public so he can have frank conversations with aides—will not keep Steve Bannon from sharing information with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to a person familiar with the situation. 

“Mueller will hear everything Bannon has to say,” said the source, who is familiar with Bannon’s thinking. 

During a closed-door hearing before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Bannon reportedly told lawmakers that President Donald Trumphas invoked broad executive privilege for the purposes of congressional inquiries. Because of that, Bannon refused to answer committee members’ questions about what happened during the presidential transition and in the White House. 

This sweeping understanding of privilege will not effect what Bannon tells Mueller’s team, according to our source. (To be sure, Bannon isn’t known for being predictable, and it’s possible his team may still look for ways to dodge Mueller’s queries.) 

But it means he isn’t answering many of Congress’s questions. A source familiar with Bannon’s interview told The Daily Beast that despite the subpoena—issued by Devin Nunes, the typically Trump-friendly chairman of the committee—Bannon refused to answer questions about events that happened after Election Day.

And Bannon is talking to Mueller because Mueller hit Bannon with a grand jury subpoena last week.

FBI agents showed up at Steve Bannon’s Washington home last week intent on serving him with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury investigating possible ties between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia, according to a source familiar with the proceedings. 

The agents were unaware at the time that Bannon had retained Washington lawyer William Burck just hours earlier, according to two people familiar with the events that took place on Jan. 9. Once redirected, the agents sent the order to Burck, who is also representing two other witnesses in the probe being led by special counsel Robert Mueller, a former director of the FBI. 

Bannon, who served as President Donald Trump’s chief strategist until he departed the White House in August, could end up being interviewed by Mueller’s team before the end of the month, according to one source who agreed to discuss the matter on the condition of anonymity.

Mueller is compelling Bannon to talk, period.  Bannon in turn is counting on three things:

1. The info he has is valuable enough to Mueller to shop a deal.  Bannon is the closest member of Trump's inner circle yet to be hit by a grand jury subpoena.  Except that subpoena wasn't served, as Bannon decided to cooperate and agree to a Mueller interview instead.  It's possible that Bannon may try to screw Mueller, but I'm betting Mueller is holding some pretty powerful cards in order to compel Bannon to talk, and in turn, what Bannon knows is useful enough for Mueller not to just crush him immediately.
2. He knows Devin Nunes won't hold him in contempt.  Dems may want to know what Bannon knows (and even some Republicans want to know that) but Devin Nunes isn't about to risk Trump's considerable wrath here.  Not only would that be political suicide, it would probably be legal suicide too, as Nunes has already recused himself from the Russian investigation and Bannon could have some very ugly revelations about Nunes's involvement.  Whether or not Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, can find a way to hold Bannon in contempt, I don't know.  Schiff I think will defer to Mueller and with good reason.
3. He doesn't want his testimony leaked, so he said nothing.  There's nothing to leak in a closed-door session if you don't say anything.  See number one up there.  Any bombshells that Bannon delivered yesterday would have been in today's paper, damaging his chances to cut a deal with Mueller.  Besides, anything he said yesterday would have absolutely gotten back to Trump, again, compromising the potential value of his information to Mueller.  Bannon's a sleazeball racist happy to put neo-Nazis and white supremacist assholes on his dance card all day, but he doesn't want to go to prison, and he needs something powerful in order to stay out.

So yeah, if Bannon is talking to Mueller, Trump knows he's in dire trouble.  Trump can shift blame on the Flynn and Manafort indictments, but if Mueller's got Bannon, Trump is done.

And Trump knows it.

[UPDATE] BuzzFeed just dropped this little firecracker.

Officials investigating the Kremlin’s interference in the 2016 US presidential election are scrutinizing newly uncovered financial transactions between the Russian government and people or businesses inside the United States. 

Records exclusively reviewed by BuzzFeed News also show years of Russian financial activity within the US that bankers and federal law enforcement officials deemed suspicious, raising concerns about how the Kremlin’s diplomats operated here long before the 2016 election. 

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, charged with investigating Russian election interference and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, is examining these transactions and others by Russian diplomatic personnel, according to a US official with knowledge of the inquiry. The special counsel has broad authority to investigate “any matters” that “may arise” from his investigation, and the official said Mueller’s probe is following leads on suspicious Russian financial activity that may range far beyond the election.

 Stay tuned.

StupidINews!

• The House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed former Trump strategist Steve Bannon after he refused to answer questions, Bannon refused to comply citing White House advice.
• A group of 21 state attorneys general have filed a federal lawsuit to restore net neutrality rules stripped by the FCC last year, saying the regulatory move violates federal commerce laws.
• Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Tuesday that North Korea could face a military response if it rejects negotiation as 20 countries agreed to new sanctions against Pyongyang.
• House Republicans want a four-week spending bill to avoid a Friday government shutdown, the bill would fund CHIP but ignores Democratic demands on DACA and immigration.
• The Bitcoin bubble appears to have burst, after rising in value to nearly $20,000, the cryptocurrency is crashing along with the market and lost a quarter of its value yesterday alone.

Last Call For Insurance Assurance

Just a reminder that 3.2 million Americans have lost their health insurance since Trump took office, and that number is expected to rise significantly.

The percentage of U.S. adults without health insurance was essentially unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2017, at 12.2%, but it is up 1.3 percentage points from the record low of 10.9% found in the last quarter of 2016. The 1.3-point increase in the uninsured rate during 2017 is the largest single-year increase Gallup and Sharecare have measured since beginning to track the rate in 2008, including the period before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect. That 1.3 point increase represents an estimated 3.2 million Americans who entered the ranks of the uninsured in 2017. 

 

The results for the fourth quarter of 2017 are based on more than 25,000 interviews with U.S. adults aged 18 and older from October 1 to December 31, conducted as part of the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index.

It's only going to get worse of course, but guess who has already lost their insurance first?

The uninsured rate rose for all demographic groups in 2017, with the exception of those aged 65 and older, all of whom qualify for Medicare coverage. It increased most among young adults, blacks, Hispanics and low-income Americans. 

Importantly, the uninsured rate among adults aged 18-25 rose by 2.0 points in 2017. Young adults serve a critical function in healthcare markets because their low usage of healthcare helps offset the higher costs of insuring older Americans.

And without the individual mandate, that rate will only go up.  By rates I mean both percentage of uninsured, and premium costs.  It's going to get bad, folks.  Millions more will lose their insurance, probably tens of millions, over the next few years.

We're going to look back at 18% uninsured in this country as "the good ol' days" pretty soon, especially for African-Americans and Hispanic folks.  As long as we're suffering more, poor white voters will continue to support the GOP, even as Republican policies literally kill them.

Three People Outside Jefferson City, Missouri Con't

The saga of Missouri GOP Gov. Eric Grietens continues amid last week's news of a scandal involving blackmail, abuse, and cover-up.  As Democrats call for his resignation, now we find out that Greitens violated the state's open records law. to avoid being caught.

With Greitens’ behavior during the affair now the subject of a criminal probe by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, it remains unclear how the Republican-controlled Legislature will move forward in the remaining four months of the legislative session. 

The stunning development already upended plans to push forward with the governor’s agenda on ethics and regulatory reform. The House had been poised to cap off last week by taking votes on a Greitens-led initiative to limit gifts from lobbyists, as well as lift regulations on hair braiders, but they left town Thursday without taking a vote, saying they wanted members to leave early to beat an impending winter storm. 

The ability of Greitens to govern was already in jeopardy in the Senate, where he is facing blowback for appointing a majority of new members to the state Board of Education in order to oust the state’s top school leader. 

Sen. Gary Romine, R-Farmington, earlier said he planned to use his filibuster powers to block the appointments from being confirmed. Senate President Pro Tem Ron Richard, R-Joplin, said he was putting the appointments on the backburner to let tempers cool.
Greitens was further impeded by an investigation by Attorney General Josh Hawley into his administration’s use of a secretive app that deletes text messages, potentially in violation of state open records laws. 

Missouri Republican Party Chairman Todd Graves acknowledged Monday the governor’s woes have made the path forward rockier. 

“I think the agenda will continue to advance, (but) it’s going to cause some additional hurdles,” Graves said.

Gosh, you think?  And yes, even in the Trump era, state Republicans are raising the possibility of impeachment if Grietens doesn't step down.

Even if the governor does weather the scandal it could severely damage his ability to pass his agenda. 

Many Republican lawmakers have voiced support for investigating the allegations and at least one, Sen. Gary Romine of Farmington, has raised the possibility of impeachment if an investigation does not exonerate the governor. 

A poll that was conducted on the heels of the scandal by Remington Research Group, a GOP-leaning firm, shows that the governor’s brand has been damaged by the scandal. 

The poll found that only 32 percent of likely Missouri voters have a favorable opinion of the governor, which is a drop of 10 percentage points from a poll conducted by the same firm a week earlier.

Grietens is crashing and burning pretty hard right now.  We'll see if he survives, but my guess is if Alabama's Robert Bentley was forced out last year for less in a blood red state, then Greitens isn't long for his job.  It won't stop the Missouri GOP from continuing to wreck the state's economy, but it will slow them down a tad.

We'll see.

Not Completely Out Of Neutral Just Yet

Democrats in the Senate now say they have 50 votes to override the FCC's decision to end net neutrality regulations of the internet, all 49 Democratic senators now that Alabama Sen. Doug Jones has been seated, plus Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

“With full caucus support,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), one of the lawmakers spearheading the effort, “it’s clear that Democrats are committed to fighting to keep the Internet from becoming the Wild West where ISPs are free to offer premium service to only the wealthiest customers while average consumers are left with far inferior options.”

To pass the Senate, backers of the resolution must recruit one more Republican member to their ranks. The measure must survive the Republican-majority House and be signed by President Trump to take effect.

After an independent agency makes a decision — such as the FCC's net neutrality deregulation — federal lawmakers have a window of 60 legislative days to reverse the move under the Congressional Review Act. As of last Tuesday, 40 senators had signed on to the resolution to challenge the FCC under the act. Since then, 10 more have joined the effort.

Democrats have said they plan to make net neutrality a midterm campaign issue, forcing vulnerable GOP candidates to stand with their party and adopt a position that, according to some surveys, is at odds with that of the broader public.

It's possible that Trump would sign this if he can be talked into the populist aspects of it, but I just don't see how this gets through the House currently.  Maybe that's the point though: if the Dems can show such a measure can pass the Senate, it would show voters how important it is that the GOP finally gets booted out of controlling the House.

Of course it'll be too late to reverse the FCC's decision by 2019 when the new Congress is sworn in, cold comfort I know. But it's something, and better than the Dems just giving up like they normally do in these situations.

On the other hand, it may be that the best thing the Dems do is try and fail, leading to something like Comcast or Charter then offering metered or tiered internet plans based on sites that people...and businesses...visit.  You want to get millennials to register to vote and show up in November, have Verizon charge an extra $10 per month to access social media sites on your phone or Comcast charge an extra $20 to stream Netflix or Hulu.

That's where we're heading, of course, and other countries that don't have net neutrality measures are already doing this, like Guatemala and Portugal.

In many countries without net neutrality, mobile plans are the worst culprit. Take what happens in Guatemala, for example. “Many people will have two SIM cards there because on one SIM card they can access WhatsApp for free, and on another SIM card you access Facebook for free,” says Renata Avila, a senior adviser at the Web Foundation. If you buy a small amount of data that gets used up quickly, WhatsApp will still be accessible after the cap is reached, but not the rest of the internet. If you do try to access other websites or apps, you’ll be prompted to pay more. Similar mobile internet plans exist in Balkan countries, Avila said, but there you might buy a SIM card that favors Viper, a popular messaging service in that region.

This practice is also common throughout the European Union. The EU has net neutrality laws, but they don’t outright prohibit mobile plans that allow users to only access certain apps without cutting into their data plans. Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, described the situation in Portugal in a tweet that went viral in October. The tweet showed a page from Meo, a mobile and home internet provider in Portugal that offers various packages made up of websites and apps that don’t cut into your monthly data plan. So if you use social media a lot, you can buy a package that allows you to use Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and a few other major social media companies without cutting into your data, a practice commonly called zero-rating. It’s a model that actually isn’t illegal in the U.S. even under the current network neutrality rules, which state that the FCC can consider on a case-by-case basis whether companies are using data caps in anti-competitive ways. In fact, AT&T already does this in the U.S. by providing its home broadband customers with unlimited free data when they also subscribe to the AT&T-owned DirecTV. AT&T mobile customers can also stream content from DirecTV for free. Similarly, certain T-Mobile plans allow users to stream as much Spotify or Apple Music as they’d like without cutting into their data allotment.

This may sound like a nice perk, but privileging access to certain apps in packages like this helps cement the dominance of incumbent powerful internet brands, since users can’t even access other apps once their small pool of data is used up, and it’s the telecomm that decides which apps make it into the bundle. “This incentivizes telecoms not to increase data caps on mobile internet,” says Estelle Masse, a senior policy analyst at Access Now, an international digital rights advocacy group. A more net neutrality friendly approach, Masse explains, would be to get rid of or lift the data caps altogether.

So yeah, zero-rating and tiered packages are coming, my guess is before the end of the year.  The old days of metered dial-up AOL web access 25 years ago sound like a joke to kids these days, but we'll be going right back to that sooner than you think.