Last Call For Who's The Boss?

I mentioned last week that the growing battle over the future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was in full effect, as Richard Cordray left the agency to run for Governor in Ohio.  He left the agency to its deputy director, but Trump appointed his budget direct Mick Mulvaney to run the agency.

A federal court sided with Mulvaney, and within a week, the "Consumer" has all but been removed from the title of the agency, it's now very much the Financial Protection Bureau.

The defanging of a federal consumer watchdog agency began last week in a federal courthouse in San Francisco. 

After a nearly three-year legal skirmish, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appeared to have been victorious. A judge agreed in September with the bureau that a financial company had misled more than 100,000 mortgage customers. As punishment, the judge ordered the Ohio company, Nationwide Biweekly Administration, to pay nearly $8 million in penalties. 

All that was left was to collect the cash. Last week, lawyers from the consumer bureau filed an 11-page brief asking the judge to force Nationwide to post an $8 million bond while the proceedings wrapped up. 

Then Mick Mulvaney was named the consumer bureau’s acting director. 

Barely 48 hours later, the same lawyers filed a new two-sentence brief. Their request: to withdraw their earlier submission and no longer take a position on whether Nationwide should put up the cash. 

It was a subtle but unmistakable sign that the consumer bureau under Mr. Mulvaney is headed in a new direction — one that takes a lighter touch to regulating the financial industry. The reversal is part of a broad push by the Trump administration to unfetter companies from Obama-era regulations.

Inside the agency, change has been swift. Mr. Mulvaney briefly stopped approval of payments to some victims of financial crime, halted hiring, froze all new rule-making and ordered a review of active investigations and lawsuits. Some, he has indicated, will be abandoned. 

“This place will be different, under my leadership and under whoever follows me,” Mr. Mulvaney said Monday about an agency that he previously denounced as a “sad, sick” example of bureaucracy gone amok. 

Mr. Mulvaney took over leadership of the bureau, created in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, less than two weeks ago. The abrupt resignation of Richard Cordray, the bureau’s longtime director, who had been appointed by President Barack Obama, set off an extraordinary public fight for control of the agency. The battle pitted Mr. Mulvaney, who was named acting director by President Trump, against Leandra English, the bureau’s deputy director under Mr. Cordray. While Mr. Trump can appoint his own director, confirmation could take months. Until then, the acting director is in charge. 

Last week, a federal judge ruled in Mr. Mulvaney’s favor, denying an emergency motion that Ms. English had filed to stop the White House from selecting a temporary director. The lawsuit is continuing. 

The bureau has been investigating Santander, the giant Spanish bank, for overcharging auto loan customers. Given the tenor of recent conversations inside the bureau, agency lawyers suspect the investigation could be shelved under Mr. Mulvaney, according to four people with knowledge of the case who requested anonymity to discuss an investigation. 

Raschelle Burton, a spokeswoman for Santander, said the company was not aware of any planned lawsuit from the C.F.P.B.

By the time the matter gets to the Supreme Court -- if they even bother to take it up -- Mulvaney will have long ended the agency's investigations and will have wrecked any hope of consumers getting their money back from the banks.

Mulvaney wasn't brought in to streamline the agency.  He was brought in to dismantle it.  And there's every reason to believe the GOP will find a way to eliminate the agency sooner rather than later.  Remember the Dubya days, where industry regulators were tasked to protect industries from lawsuits?  We're back to that with a vengeance.

But hey, this is what the country voted for, right?

Russian To Judgment, Con't

Michael Flynn is the gift that keeps on giving...to Robert Mueller, that is.  His major problem is he could never keep his mouth shut, especially when it comes to how smart he is.  And while conservatives point to the lack of conspiracy charges against Flynn so far as "proof" there was no Trump campaign collusion with Russia, the reality is far, far different.

Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, told a former business associate that economic sanctions against Russia would be “ripped up” as one of the Trump administration’s first acts, according to an account by a whistle-blower made public on Wednesday. 

Mr. Flynn believed that ending the sanctions could allow a business project he had once participated in to move forward, according to the whistle-blower. The account is the strongest evidence to date that the Trump administration wanted to end the sanctions immediately, and suggests that Mr. Flynn had a possible economic incentive for the United States to forge a closer relationship with Russia. 

Mr. Flynn had worked on a business venture to partner with Russia to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East until June 2016, but remained close with the people involved afterward. On Inauguration Day, according to the whistle-blower, Mr. Flynn texted the former business associate to say that the project was “good to go.” 

The account is detailed in a letter written by Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee. In the letter, Mr. Cummings said that the whistle-blower contacted his office in June and has authorized him to go public with the details. He did not name the whistle-blower.

Remember, Mueller isn't the only investigatory body looking at Trump and Russian collusion, it's important not to forget that.  Yes, Mueller almost certainly knows everything that the House Oversight Committee, Senate Judiciary, and House Judiciary Committees know, but he's not going to leak anything directly.  Democrats on these committees, well, they made it clear that they're not bound by such fetters.

“These grave allegations compel a full, credible and bipartisan congressional investigation,” Mr. Cummings wrote. 

Mr. Flynn has been under investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating Russia’s attempts to disrupt last year’s election, for calls he made last December to Sergey I. Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States at the time. Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about the nature of his calls, during which the men discussed the sanctions that the Obama administration had just imposed on Russia.

In his letter, Mr. Cummings also said that his staff had been in consultations with Mr. Mueller’s team, which brought the criminal charge against Mr. Flynn. Staffers for the special counsel asked Mr. Cummings not to make the whistle-blower’s account public until “they completed certain investigative steps,” he wrote. 

According to the account detailed in the letter, the whistle-blower had a conversation on Inauguration Day with Alex Copson of ACU Strategic Partners, a company that hired Mr. Flynn in 2015 as an adviser to develop a plan to work with Russia to build nuclear power plants throughout the Middle East. Mr. Flynn served as an adviser until June 2016. 

During the conversation, Mr. Copson told the whistle-blower that “this is the best day of my life” because it was “the start of something I’ve been working on for years, and we are good to go.” Mr. Copson told the whistle-blower that Mr. Flynn had sent him a text message during Mr. Trump’s inaugural address, directing him to tell others involved in the nuclear project to continue developing their plans.

Clearly Flynn, as national security adviser, believed Russian sanctions would be eliminated under the Trump regime and that the projects he was working on, mainly these Russian nuclear plants in the Middle East, would be a cakewalk.

He of course was wrong.

Whether or not Mueller can prove that in court is something for another day, but the right is dreaming if it thinks Mueller and the various Congressional Committees are bluffing.  Again this is going to be a political fight in the end, and indeed the Flynn indictment is starting to make Americans realize that there's something fundamentally wrong with this regime, as a new CBS News poll finds.

Most Americans think former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea and cooperation with the special counsel is a serious issue for the Trump administration, including a third of Republicans. But most Republicans see the Russia investigation overall as politically motivated.

Americans divide in their views on the Russia investigation: eight in 10 Republicans call it politically motivated, while three in four Democrats say it is justified. 

Some Republicans – just over four in 10 - do think it's at least somewhat likely that senior Trump advisers had improper dealings with Russia, but they are less likely than Democrats to think that Flynn's guilty plea is a serious issue for the administration.

Overall, most Americans think the whole situation is an important issue to the country, but fewer Republicans think that.

Americans who think the Russia investigation is justified overwhelmingly see the Flynn matter as serious. But even the more than four in 10 who view the investigation as politically motivated also think the Flynn matter is a serious issue for the administration.

The big number in that CBS poll: 67% of Americans overall believe the Trump regime had improper dealings with Russia.  That two-thirds figure includes 43% of Republicans.  Two out of three Americans believe there was collusion, guys.  We're not at a critical mass where the GOP will drop support of Trump yet, but we're getting awfully close, and Trump knows it. 

This week in Trump's foreign policy proves that.

BREAKING: Justice For Walter Scott

Two-and-a-half years ago I predicted that former South Charleston cop Michael Slager would never be found guilty of murder for shooting unarmed black man Walter Scott in the back eight times as Scott ran away, and in a bystander's mobile phone video Slager appeared to plant "evidence" at the scene after Scott was killed. 

Slager plead guilty to a federal violation of civil rights charge in May after the jury in his state trial was deadlocked.  I had little hope that federal charges would amount to much, even though Slager was possibly facing a life sentence for murder one.  Slager and his lawyers obviously thought the same and they had every reason to believe that Slager would get off lightly, if serve any time at all.

Today a federal judge ruled that Michael Slager will be sentenced to prison for murder.

Former South Carolina police officer Michael Slager has been sentenced to 19 to 24 years in prison for the deadly shooting of unarmed black man Walter Scott. 

U.S. District Judge David Norton ruled today that the former officer committed second-degree murder and obstruction of justice. The judge's sentencing decision comes after Slager, who is white, pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights offense. 

Slager shot and killed Scott on April 4, 2015, while Slager was an officer with the North Charleston Police Department. Witness video that surfaced shortly after the encounter appeared to show the moment Slager fatally shot Scott as he ran away. He was fired from the force after the shooting. 

Slager was charged in South Carolina with murder and pleaded not guilty. During the murder trial, Slager's attorney said his client shot Scott because he was in fear for his life. In 2016, the case ended in a mistrial. The state retrial and federal trial were expected to take place this year, but instead, in May Slager pleaded guilty to violating Scott's civil rights in federal court, ending the federal case against him and also resolving the state charges that were pending after the mistrial. 

The judge's ruling today followed several days of testimony, including from Feiden Santana, the witness who filmed the shooting, and Judy Scott, Walter Scott's mother.

I'm good with this, if not ecstatic.  There are federal judges that still can see obvious abuses of power by police in America and can deliver justice.  But keep in mind as I said recently that if Donald Trump has his way, federal courts will be packed with hundreds of new terrible right-wing judges with lifetime tenures.

And then black lives truly won't matter anymore.

Olympic Levels Of Trolling

I'm sure there's still readers out there who still don't believe that the Trump regime is taking orders from the Russians, but I'm going to make another case for that here: this week the Russians were kicked out of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games in South Korea in February as the International Olympic Committee dropped the hammer on Putin and Russian sports doping in Sochi in 2014. The Atlantic's Julia Ioffe:

In rigging the Olympics, Putin got what he wanted—a successful event and a winning medal count—but the conspiracy that Russia needed to get there inevitably surfaced, and now 11 of those 33 medalists have been stripped of their prizes. Others will be given medals in their stead at Pyeongchang Olympics. Russian sport officials, like Mutko, are now banned from the Olympics for life. Russian athletes won’t be able to compete in Winter Olympics under their flag—athletes proven to be clean can compete under a neutral flag. In fact, neither the Russian anthem nor the Russian flag will appear in Pyeongchang.

In October, Putin, anticipating the IOC’s decision, said that this would be “a humiliation for the country.” Humiliation, a word echoed by many Russians when the punishment was handed down on Tuesday, the same word in the mouths of so many Russians in the wake of the Vancouver flop. Humiliation is a particular obsession for Putin, the fear of it informing his posturing at home and abroad. Before Americans spoke of making America great again, Russians spoke of Putin raising Russia up off its knees, a two-decade exercise of expunging the humiliation of the Soviet collapse. Sochi and the elaborate doping scheme used there was intended to do just that, to erase the humiliation of Vancouver, to show that Russia had restored its historic glory, to end the international mockery and disdain. Instead, like so many of Russia’s moves under Putin, it achieved the opposite. Yet again, the glitz turned out to be a sloppy front for the rot.

It may have been an impressive, FSB-orchestrated operation, but what did it get them? After Vancouver, Russia may have been smarting with the perceived humiliation of performing below their own expectations—but after Sochi, the Russian flag won’t fly at the next Olympics at all. Russian officials are busy denouncing this kind of Olympic Games as hopelessly “hobbled” and “not even the Olympics,” while others call for a full boycott by the clean Russian athletes. This wasn’t what Sochi was supposed to achieve. This is a humiliation far worse than Vancouver’s; this is pariah status. Except that Russia was already a pariah for its actions in Ukraine and for meddling in America’s 2016 presidential election, both of which made Russia’s position in the world more complicated, not less. If Putin is the omniscient mastermind many Americans imagine him to be, surely he would have anticipated this?

When I was last in Moscow, a military analyst told me that, after two decades of post-Soviet Western mockery, Russia had decided that, since no one in the West was going to love it, at least they’d fear it. But what comes after that, when the consequences set in and the fear turns to loathing condescension? Isn’t that … humiliating?

So where am I going with this?  The Olympic world humiliated Putin, so now Putin will do everything he can to turn the 2018 Winter Games into an international joke.  That apparently starts with the US suddenly floating the idea to drop out of the Olympiad.

Whether US athletes will be able to attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea remains an "open question," US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Wednesday night. 

The Winter Olympics are set to be held Feb. 9-25 in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The situation with neighboring North Korea, which has grown increasingly hostile while pursuing its nuclear ambitions, is "changing by the day," Haley said on Fox News, making the security of US athletes uncertain. 

Still, Haley said she believes President Donald Trump's administration will work to "find out the best way" to make sure the athletes are protected. 

"I think those are conversations we are going to have to have, but what have we always said? We don't ever fear anything, we live our lives," Haley said. "And certainly that is a perfect opportunity for all of them to go and do something they have worked so hard for. What we will do is, we will make sure that we're taking every precaution possible to make sure that they're safe and to know everything that's going on around them." 

Asked if it's a "done deal" that US athletes will be able to attend the Olympics, Haley said: "There's an open question. I have not heard anything about that, but I do know in the talks that we have -- whether it's Jerusalem or North Korea -- it's about, how do we protect the US citizens in the area?"

Suddenly, a day after the Russians were banned from the 2018 games in South Korea, the security of US athletes at the games is "an open question".  And if the security of the mightiest nation on earth is in question, maybe nobody else will be safe at the games either.  If the Trump regime may not send a delegation because of "security" then what do they know is coming? Maybe that makes everyone else nervous.  Maybe they shouldn't send delegations either, it's "too risky".

And suddenly it's not Russia being punished.  It's everyone, starting with host nation South Korea.

Putin may have his revenge.  And he may very well get it now if the US drops out of the Games.  Now, it's maybe a trial balloon, but I'm betting if the IOC were to change its mind about Russia, maybe the US would decide that the Games have to go on in the Olympic Spirit.

I can't prove of course that this is what happened, that Putin picked up the phone and called Trump and said "You need to threaten to pull out of the Olympics over North Korea".

But there are never coincidences this big at this level of the game.

StupidiNews!

• Major wildfires driven by hurricane-force Santa Ana winds are ripping through Los Angeles and surrounding Southern California communities and could continue burning for weeks.
• House Republicans have passed legislation that would require states to recognize concealed carry firearms permits issued by any state, a de facto national concealed carry law.
• Hamas is calling for a new Palestinian uprising in response to Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of Israel, Israeli troops are on standby in the West Bank.
• General Electric is announcing 12,000 job cuts in its electric power division in 2018, most of the cuts will come outside the US due to sharp drops in coal and gas power plant systems.
• A federal judge has sentenced a former Volkswagen executive to 7 years in prison and a $400,000 fine for his role in the automaker's diesel emissions cheating scandal.

Last Call For Conyers's Karma

Michigan Democratic Rep. John Conyers finally couldn't withstand the pressure to resign anymore and did the right thing...or was forced to, kicking and screaming.

Embattled Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, has announced Tuesday that he is retiring and has endorsed his son, John Conyers III to run for his seat. Conyers' lawyer confirmed that the retirement is effective immediately. 

"My legacy can't be compromised or diminished in any way by what we're going through now. This too shall pass," said Conyers on a local Michigan radio station Tuesday morning.

He added, "I want you to know that my legacy will continue through my children. I have a great family here and especially in my oldest boy, John Conyers III who incidentally I endorsed to replace me in my seat in Congress." 

Shortly after the announcement, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, took to the House floor to read a statement from Conyers. She said he asked her to read his statement announcing his decision and that he's notified House Speaker Paul Ryan, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder of his plans to step down. 

"Given the totality of the circumstance of not being afforded the right of due process in conjunction with current health conditions, and to preserve my legacy and good name, I am retiring. I hope my retirement will be viewed in the larger perspective of my record of service as I enter a new chapter," the statement from Conyers read.

But as politically useless as the Congressional Black Caucus has been over the last decade or so, they have a valid point when it comes to the double standard of Democrats not having the back of black lawmakers like Conyers compared to say, Sen. Al Franken.

Many CBC members see a double standard at play. They won't say the treatment of Conyers is racist, necessarily — and all express strong support for his alleged victims — but they think white politicians accused of similar misconduct like Blake Farenthold, Al Franken, Roy Moore and Donald Trump get a "benefit of the doubt" that black politicians don't enjoy.

Some members believe House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other party leaders moved too quickly in calling on Conyers to resign and should have let the process play out more, although they understand the pressure she was facing. And still another faction thinks Conyers' declining health and mental acuity after more than 52 years in Congress led to the debacle, despite evidence that Conyers allegedly had been harassing female staffers for years. 

There is also significant anger within the CBC, aimed at one of their own: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). Conyers was going to announce his retirement from Congress last Friday. Then Monica Conyers, the congressman's wife, and Jackson Lee got involved and stopped it from happening, said several Democratic lawmakers and aides. That decision dragged out the controversy for five days, although the delay ultimately allowed Conyers to endorse his son, John Conyers III, for his seat. Ian Conyers, the congressman's grand-nephew and a Michigan state senator, also may run, setting off an intrafamily battle.

Franken, by the way, has yet another accusation out against him today.

A former Democratic congressional aide said Al Franken tried to forcibly kiss her after a taping of his radio show in 2006, three years before he became a U.S. senator. 

The aide, whose name POLITICO is withholding to protect her identity, said Franken (D-Minn.) pursued her after her boss had left the studio. She said she was gathering her belongings to follow her boss out of the room. When she turned around, Franken was in her face.

The former staffer ducked to avoid Franken’s lips. As she hastily left the room, she said, Franken told her: “It’s my right as an entertainer.” 

“He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked,” the aide said in an interview. “I was really startled by it and I just sort of booked it towards the door and he said, ‘It’s my right as an entertainer.’” 

The former staffer, who was in her mid-20s at the time of the incident, said she did not respond to Franken.

That was a bridge too far for Senate Democrats, who called on Franken en masse to resign, and tomorrow he is expected to do just that.

A Democratic official who has spoken to Al Franken and key aides says Franken will resign his Minnesota Senate seat on Thursday, the official tells MPR News.

The official spoke to Franken and separately to Franken's staff. A staff member told the official that Franken had gone to his Washington home to discuss his plans with family.

MPR News agreed to withhold the official's name because the official wanted to give Franken the chance to talk about his decision in his own words.

Franken faced a cascade of calls Wednesday from fellow Democrats and other political allies to leave office in response to multiple allegations of sexual harassment.

So in the same week, within 48 hours of each other, both Conyers and Franken are gone.  I did say both had to go, but of course I also believe the same holds true for Roy Moore and Donald Trump.

And I know the argument, "If only Democrats resign then eventually there will be nothing but Republicans in Congress."  I'm sorry, but morality shouldn't be wholly dependent on the cynicism of political expediency.  That's what Republicans do.

Breaking The Silence, Finally

In a move sure to upset Donald Trump, TIME has not named Donald Trump person of the year in 2017.

TIME has named the Silence Breakers, the individuals who set off a national reckoning over the prevalence of sexual harassment, as its 2017 Person of the Year. 

The magazine's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal revealed the selection Wednesday on TODAY along with the cover, a composite group photo that includes actress Ashley Judd, singer Taylor Swift, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler and a woman whose face cannot be seen. 

"The galvanizing actions of the women on our cover … along with those of hundreds of others, and of many men as well, have unleashed one of the highest-velocity shifts in our culture since the 1960s," Felsenthal said in a statement. 

The Silence Breakers emerged amid burgeoning allegations of sexual misconduct and assault by film executive Harvey Weinstein. As his list of accusers swelled, so did the number of people who spoke up to expose dozens of other famous individuals in Hollywood, politics, journalism and other industries as sexual predators.

Actor Kevin Spacey, journalist Charlie Rose, comedian Louis CK and U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota were among the high-profile names snared in an ever-growing web of alleged sexual harassers. Last week, former TODAY anchor Matt Lauer was also accused of sexual misconduct. 

The women, and men, who broke their silence to share their stories of victimization gave traction to the #MeToo campaign, which took off on social media and fueled a worldwide discussion on just how endemic sexual harassment has been. 

Felsenthal noted the hashtag, which he called "a powerful accelerant," has been used millions of times in at least 85 countries.

This was a good call from TIME.  Women are coming forward now and telling their stories, and we should believe them.  I have friends and family who have similar stories, and who have kept the stories to themselves for various reasons, most of all the victim blasting America does to anyone who comes forward to claim a powerful man has abused them.

Maybe going forward that will finally be different.

Here's the thing though, the #MeToo hashtag movement was started a decade ago by a black activist named Tarana Burke.  It gained steam only when actor Alyssa Milano mentioned it, giving credit to Burke for her long years of work in Brooklyn helping women.  The movement was there, it just wasn't visible.

Oh, and using Ollivander's Rule ("After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things. Terrible! Yes. But great.") Donald Trump did come in second. To several women who claimed powerful men abused them.

There's a lesson there if America and the world chooses to learn it.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

In GOP fantasy land, Trump fires Robert Mueller and then has Jeff Sessions appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  The fact that I can say "yes, that's still certainly possible" says worlds about what kind of gross chancre Trump is on the ass of humanity. In reality however, Mueller is still making his three-pronged attack.  

As I've said several times, the Mueller probe is focusing on three things: Russian collusion, money laundering, and obstruction of justice covering up the previous two crimes. We haven't talked about the Russian Money laundering angle much in the last month or so with the indictments, but Mueller is definitely looking into that.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for financial information on President Donald Trump and his associates as part of the investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Multiple news outlets report that Germany’s largest bank received a request from Mueller’s team several weeks ago for data on money and financial transactions made by Trump and his associates.

It’s still unclear which specific individuals Mueller requested information on and whether the president himself was one of them. One of Trump’s personal lawyers, Jay Sekulow, disputes the reports. “We have confirmed that the news reports that the Special Counsel had subpoenaed financial records relating to the President are false,” he said in a statement. “No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources.”

Trump’s family has relied Deutsche Bank for past business loans: The real estate company owned by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, finalized a $285 million loan from Deutsche Bank one month before election day as part of a refinancing package for one of Kushner’s company’s properties in Times Square.

The bank has also been linked to criminal activity. In January 2017, Deutsche Bank received $630 million in penalties because it was involved in a $10 billion Russian money-laundering scheme that involved the bank’s Moscow, New York, and London branches, CNN reports.

Deutsche Bank has long been Moscow's major bank of choice when it comes to high-end money laundering,  and the bank has been one of the Trump Organization's major go-to partners on real estate deals. If Trump was getting payoffs in the form of real estate loans that never got paid back through the bank from Moscow, Mueller would definitely want to know.

I've also seen the theory that that Flynn's single charge of lying to the FBI means that's all there is and Mueller doesn't have anything else that can stand up in a court of law. The right certainly is dancing around, saying that this is proof there's no collusion, because otherwise Flynn would have been charged with the kitchen sink.  I think that's possible but unlikely.  Rather, as Preet Bharara says, Mueller's playing his cards close to the vest because he doesn't want to tip his hand yet.

So what does Bharara think could be going on? One possibility, he suggests, is that Mueller doesn’t have anything else on Flynn that might stand up in court: “People need to really consider the possibility that this might be it.”

But Bharara also suggests another scenario: that Mueller is “holding back on other charges to which Michael Flynn will plead guilty if and when they form the basis of charging some other folks.”

That is — certain potential charges against Flynn could implicate others in Trump’s orbit as well, and Mueller’s team just isn’t ready to make those charges yet (and might never be).

This case, of course, could be rather different than Bharara’s own past prosecutions. For one, Mueller’s potential endgame might be an impeachment referral rather than a high-profile court trial. Additionally, Mueller could be concerned about Trump’s pardon power — perhaps he’s holding off on some potential charges against Flynn so he could bring them later, in case of a pardon.

This is almost certainly the correct scenario.  When the rest of the charges come, they will be manifest. But until Mueller makes his final recommendations to Congress and the Justice Department, I still beleive it isn't over for Flynn.  Maybe he's not singing like a bird, maybe he is. But it's not over for him.

Not by a long shot.

StupidiNews!

• Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms pulled off a razor-close win over Independent Mary Norwood in Atlanta's mayoral race last night, Norwood is already calling for a recount.
• Donald Trump will attend the opening of Mississippi's Civil Rights Museum on Saturday, prompting condemnation from local Democrats and the NAACP.
• British police say they have foiled a terrorist plot to attack 10 Downing Street and attempt to kill P Theresa May, cabinet officials were briefed on the arrests made two weeks ago.
• US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad says that North Korea must immediately halt all missile tests before the US would consider diplomatic talks.
• Hyperloop One co-founder Shervin Pishevar is the latest tech figure to be booted over sexual harassment claims, he will step down effective today.

Last Call For The Drums Of War, Con't

With the US Supreme Court announcing that the Trump regime can fully implement its Muslim travel ban while the case works its way through the appellate system, and all but showing SCOTUS's cards on how it will rule when it gets the case, not only am I convinced more than ever that we'll be in an all new war by the end of 2018, but possibly two.

The US Supreme Court on Monday allowed the newest version of President Donald Trump's travel ban to take effect pending appeal. 

This is the first time justices have allowed any edition of the ban to go forward in its entirety. It signals that some of the justices might be distinguishing the latest version from previous iterations and could be more likely, in the future, to rule in favor of the ban. 

Issued in September, the third edition of the travel ban placed varying levels of restrictions on foreign nationals from eight countries: Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Somalia and Yemen. 

Lower courts in two separate challenges had partially blocked the ban. 

The order is a significant temporary win for the Trump administration, which has fought all year to impose a travel ban against citizens of several Muslim-majority countries. Monday's order means it can be enforced while challenges to the policy make their way through the legal system.

And if this doesn't piss off the Muslim world enough, Trump's coming announcement tomorrow certainly will.

Donald Trump is telling leaders from across the Middle East that he intends to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel, an explosive move that will break from 50 years of US foreign policy, potentially derail his administration’s hopes of restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and threaten to spark violence across the region. 

Trump reportedly also told King Abdullah of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by phone that he plans to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. That move won’t be imminent, however. The White House told reporters late Tuesday that the president plans to sign another six-month waiver delaying the embassy move; Trump is expected to publicly announce both decisions on Wednesday. 

The administration’s planned announcement is already sparking fury across the Arab world. A spokeswoman for Abbas’s office issued a statement early Tuesday warning of “dangerous consequences” if Trump moves forward with plans to eventually move the embassy. King Abdullah was equally critical, saying in a statement that the White House shift on Jerusalem “will undermine the efforts of the American administration to resume the peace process.” 

Right-wing Israeli leaders, by contrast, didn’t try to disguise their happiness. In a message to Trump, Naftali Bennett, the head of the Jewish Home party, said he wanted to thank “you from the bottom of my heart for your commitment and intention to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” 

The sharply divergent reactions highlight the fact that there is almost no other issue in the Middle East as contentious as the future of Jerusalem. 

Both the Palestinians and the Israelis claim Jerusalem as their capital. Though Israel’s Parliament and the prime minister’s home are in Jerusalem, they sit in West Jerusalem, on the side of the city Israel has controlled since 1949. Israel captured East Jerusalem in 1967 and annexed that half of the city. 

The international community considers East Jerusalem occupied territory. But that half the city also contains sites holy to all three major monotheistic religions, including the Western Wall, the most sacred site in the world for Jews, and the Temple Mount, a sacred site for Muslims. 

The Palestinians would like to officially divide the city and make East Jerusalem the capital of a future Palestinian state. The Israelis, to put it mildly, disagree — and the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long made clear that it wouldn’t even consider making concessions over Jerusalem. 

The decades-long political fight over the future of the city is what makes Trump’s new moves so momentous — and so dangerous.

Trump's move will have disastrous consequences for the peace process and for America.  At this point it's a race to see who we go to war with first, North Korea or Iran.

Believe me when I say Trump wants both.

Taxing Our Patience, Con't

So it turns out that when you rush through a bill that rewrites the entire US tax code in one day and don't bother to read the bill, you make mistakes.  Big ones.  Like rendering 100% of your multi-billion dollar corporate tax sweetheart deductions moot.

Mitch McConnell never subjected his blueprint for restructuring the world’s largest economy to a single hearing. His caucus never invited experts to offer insight into the bill’s implications for housing, health care, higher education, outsourcing, or tax evasion. This haste had an upside for the Senate GOP: It allowed the party to pass deeply unpopular changes to the tax code before the public had time to learn about them.
But approaching major legislation like an Adderall-addled sophomore approaches an overdue term paper came with a minor drawback: It forced the party to pass a tax bill before they had time to read it. 

In hindsight, McConnell should have asked for an extension. While Republicans were manically outlining their plans to take from the poor to give to the Trumps, they also, accidentally, nullified all of their corporate donors’ favorite deductions. 

This screwup — like most of the tax plan’s oddest features — was born of a math problem. Due to arcane Senate rules, the Trump tax cuts can only add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. Last Thursday, the Senate tax bill already cost about that sum, and then McConnell started making expensive promises to his few holdouts. Susan Collins wanted a $10,000 property tax deduction for Americans in high-tax states; Ron Johnson wanted a 23 percent business-income deduction for the company that his family owns. This left the Senate Majority Leader searching under the tax code’s couch cushions for new sources of revenue. 

Eventually, he came upon the corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT). At present, most corporations face a 35 percent (statutory) rate on their income. But by availing themselves of various tax credits and deductions, most companies can get their actual rates down far below that figure. To put a limit on just how far, the corporate AMT prevents companies from paying any less than 20 percent on their profits (or, more precisely, on the profits that they fail to hide overseas). 

The GOP had originally intended to abolish the AMT. But on Friday, with the clock running out — and money running short — Senate Republicans put the AMT back into their bill. Unfortunately for McConnell, they forgot to lower the AMT after doing so. 

This is a big problem. The Senate bill brings the normal corporate rate down to 20 percent — while leaving the alternative minimum rate at … 20 percent. The legislation would still allow corporations to claim a wide variety of tax credits and deductions — it just renders all them completely worthless. Companies can either take no deductions, and pay a 20 percent rate — or take lots of deductions … and pay a 20 percent rate.

Yes, Republicans are this stupid.  And the corporations that own Republican senators are furious.

Murray Energy Corp., an Ohio-based firm and the largest privately held U.S. coal-mining company, complained that the AMT decision and the Senate’s tougher limits on interest deductions made a “mockery out of so-called tax reform.” Robert Murray, the company’s chief executive officer, said the Senate tax plan would raise his company’s tax bill by $60 million.

“What the Senate did, in their befuddled mess, is drove me out of business and then bragged about the fact that they got some tax reform passed,” Mr. Murray said in an interview Sunday. “This is not job creation. This is not stimulating income. This is driving a whole sector of our community into nonexistence.”

Oh well.  Guess they'll have to work that out in conference.

This thing just might disintegrate after all.

Meanwhile in Bevinstan...

I was wondering when the other shoe was going to drop on former Kentucky GOP House Speaker Jeff Hoover, who resigned over covering up a sexual harassment settlement claim with a staffer last month.  Now we find out that the story behind Hoover's resignation was -- surprise! -- a lot worse than originally reported.

A Kentucky House Republican employee alleges in a lawsuit that she was retaliated against for reporting an "inappropriate sexual relationship" between then-House Speaker Jeff Hoover and a woman in his office and that GOP leaders used money from "prominent campaign donors" to secretly settle the woman's sexual harassment claim.

Communications Director Daisy Olivo says in her whistleblower lawsuit filed Monday in Franklin Circuit Court that she had her duties taken away after disclosing the details of the relationship to the Legislative Research Commission's general counsel and human resources director, and that she has faced ongoing retaliation.

Olivo's lawsuit contradicts Hoover and investigators retained by House leadership about the nature of the relationship and how the settlement was paid. 

The woman who accused Hoover of sexual harassment shared a timeline with Olivo of her "physical, sexual encounters" with Hoover, as well as three years' worth of text messages with him, according to the lawsuit. 

Claims made in a lawsuit represent only one side of the case. 

Hoover, a Jamestown Republican, admitted making mistakes but denied any sexual relations or harassment when he resigned as speaker.

His apology and resignation came four days after Courier Journal broke news that Hoover had entered into a secret settlement with a woman who worked on his staff.

I mean Hoover's already lost his job and any shot he had at higher state office, but if the claims in this lawsuit are true, Hoover's in a lot of legal trouble too.  Kentucky's had its share of Republicans and corruption, Gov. Ernie Fletcher and state Ag commissioner Ritchie Farmer to name a few, and Bevin's being so holier-than-thou over the Hoover scandal that he must have something to hide that we'll later find out about.

But this is awful even for Kentucky standards.  If Hoover used donor cash to settle this lawsuit, he's going to jail for a while as I can't imagine that Andy Beshear would be lenient on him as AG, not to mention the retaliation by Hoover to fire the woman who blew the whistle on his actions.

We'll see what happens, but the Hoover story is going to be with us well into 2018.

Last Call For Trump Cards, Con't

America's status as global pariah under the Trump regime worsens as the United States continues to bail on UN agreements.

The United States has walked away from a United Nations effort to ease the global migration and refugee crisis, with the Trump administration saying it was no longer compatible with U.S. principles or priorities. 

In a statement, the U.S. Mission said the U.N.'s New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants — recognized by the United States last year under the Obama administration — "contains numerous provisions that are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies." 

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said President Donald Trump made the decision after noting that "America is proud of our immigrant heritage and our long-standing moral leadership in providing support to migrant and refugee populations across the globe." 

"But," Haley continued, "our decisions on immigration policies must always be made by Americans and Americans alone. We will decide how best to control our borders and who will be allowed to enter the country."

The rest of the world, including China and Russia, will go on without us as Trump continues to abdicate from any sort of global leadership.

World leaders and dignitaries from 193 U.N. member states adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants in September 2016, paving the way for the global compact for migration. 

The compact, expected to be adopted in 2018, is aimed at facilitating safe and orderly migration around the world. It will present a framework for comprehensive international cooperation on migrants, set out a range of actionable commitments and tackle issues such as protecting the safety, dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants. 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson applauded Trump's decision to exit the agreement and said "strengthening global governance" would run afoul of U.S. laws and policies. 

"While we will continue to engage on a number of fronts at the United Nations, in this case, we simply cannot in good faith support a process that could undermine the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders," Tillerson said in a statement.

No longer.  A nation of immigrants has turned its back on the people of the rest of the planet.  Only about 4% of the world's population is American. The other 96% of the globe is realizing that they can get along without us for the time being, and will gladly do so.

And speaking of refugees, we seem to be headed for creating a few million more on the Korean Peninsula as Trump national security adviser is openly warning of war with Pyongyang and GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is calling for the US to begin removing the families of American soldiers stationed in South Korea.

Let’s be clear about what McMaster and Graham are saying. The US and North Korea appear to be on the path to war, and there’s no solution for peace in sight. Therefore, Graham argues, the US should stop sending family members of American military personnel to South Korea — and start taking those already there out of the country.

Graham’s commentary doesn’t come out of nowhere, however. There are serious reasons to worry about the damage North Korea could do to South Korea, where 28,500 US troops and their dependents reside.

If the US attacks North Korea, experts believe Pyongyang will retaliate not just against America but also against Seoul and Tokyo. Simulations of that possibility produce pretty bleak results. One war game convened by the Atlantic back in 2005 predicted that a North Korean attack would kill 100,000 people in Seoul — a city of around 25.6 million people — in the first few days alone. Others put the estimate even higher. A war game mentioned by the National Interest predicted Seoul could “be hit by over half-a-million shells in under an hour.”

It’s worth noting that McMaster has long talked about the growing prospect of war with North Korea, and Graham nonchalantly discusses “thousands” dying on the Korean Peninsula during a conflict. And of course Trump himself once said he would unleash “fire and fury” on North Korea if it continued to develop its nuclear program.

This rhetoric is supposed to remind North Korea that the US is serious when it says it needs to stop building a missile that can hit America. But now that North has one, it seems like the US is threatening war with no real chance of getting North Korea to do what America wants, experts tell me.

“If McMaster, Graham, and Trump are serious, God help us,” Kingston Reif, the director for disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, told me in an interview today. “If they're bluffing, it's not working to bring North Korea to the table, and threatening preventive war just further solidifies North Korea's determination to continue advancing its arsenal and increases unintended war risks.”

Either way, we're getting closer to becoming a dangerous rogue state, one the rest of the world will have to deal with.

He's Not Going Anywhere, Guys

I do update the Mueller investigation news several times a week it seems, but it's important to remember that, as The Atlantic's Peter Beinart reminds us, Trump will never be impeached by a Republican-led Congress and even if Democrats have the votes to do so in 2018, he'll never be removed from office by the Senate GOP.

Now that Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I., and agreed to dish on his former boss, some Trump-watchers are suggesting that impeachment may be around the corner. “It’s time to start talking about impeachment,” announced a Saturday column on CNN.com. The Flynn deal, declared former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman in Friday’s New York Times, “portends the likelihood of impeachable charges being brought against the president of the United States.”

That may be true. But bringing impeachment charges against Trump, and actually forcing him from office, are two vastly different things. And while the former may be more likely today than it was half a year ago, the latter is actually less likely. Since Robert Mueller became special counsel in May, the chances of the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment—and the Senate ratifying them—have probably gone down.

That’s because impeachment is less a legal process than a political one. Passing articles of impeachment requires a majority of the House. Were such a vote held today—even if every Democrat voted yes—it would still require 22 Republicans. If Democrats take the House next fall, they could then pass articles of impeachment on their own. But ratifying those articles would require two-thirds of the Senate, which would probably require at least 15 Republican votes.

That kind of mass Republican defection has grown harder, not easier, to imagine. It’s grown harder because the last six months have demonstrated that GOP voters will stick with Trump despite his lunacy, and punish those Republican politicians who do not.

Among Republicans, Trump’s approval rating has held remarkably steady. The week Mueller was named, according to Gallup, Trump’s GOP support stood at 84 percent. In the days after Donald Trump Jr. was revealed to have written, “I love it” in response to a Russian offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton, it reached 87 percent. In Gallup’s last poll, taken in late November, it was 81 percent. Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has not dipped below 79 percent since he took office. None of the revelations from Mueller’s investigation—nor any of the other outrageous things Trump has done—has significantly undermined his support among the GOP rank and file.

Beinert goes on to note Clinton survived impeachment because Democratic voters supported him in 1999 at Trump-like levels.  He finished out his second term yes, but then Dubya won the all-important Supreme Court vote and the rest, as they say, is history.

Donald Trump will most likely make it to 2020. He'll run in 2020 too, hell he's running for 2020 now. Whether or not he wins, well, that's up to America, and whether we can overcome massive GOP voter suppression tactics and apathy and not die in a nuclear war with Pyongyang or whatever.

But he won't be impeached or removed from office.  Mueller may make his life miserable but there's nothing to make me think Republican voters will turn on Trump when, not if, he makes his move on Mueller.

Yes, the White House is crippled by paranoia and Trump essentially has the worst lawyers ever because they took on the worst client on earth, but the cynic's view is correct here.  This is 100% political now, the legality and morality of Trump's actions no longer apply.

President Trump's outside lawyer said in a new interview that a president can't obstruct justice. 

The "President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," attorney John Dowd told Axios. 

His comments come after Trump in a tweet over the weekend appeared to reveal he knew former national security adviser Michael Flynn had lied to the FBI when he was fired.
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies," Trump tweeted on Saturday. 

"It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!"

The tweet spurred controversy, as legal experts suggested if Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI and then asked Comey to drop the investigation, it could amount to obstruction of justice.

Mueller's investigation is still important, but only politics can remove Trump, and he'll have the support of 90%+ of Republicans regardless of what happens.  Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise.  We're well past the "alleged" part of collusion and obstruction of justice now.

The White House's chief lawyer told President Donald Trump in January he believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Mike Pence and should be fired, a source familiar with the matter said Monday. 

The description of the conversation raises new questions about what Trump knew about Flynn's situation when he urged then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn and whether anyone in the White House, including the President himself, attempted to obstruct justice. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, a probe led by Comey until Trump fired him. 

White House counsel Donald McGahn told Trump that based on his conversation with then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates, he believed Flynn had not told the truth in his interview with the FBI or to Pence, the source said. McGahn did not tell the President that Flynn had violated the law in his FBI interview or was under criminal investigation, the source said.

Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI because McGahn told him, Trump then fired Sally Yates and James Comey in order to try to cover up for Flynn.  There's no longer any doubt now. The law no longer matters where we're going.

Yes, the Trump regime is looking more a more like the Nixon administration daily, but Nixon resigned solely due to political pressure. Maybe that pressure can be brought to bear, but as I've been saying for months now, that would depend on the same Republicans who have been supporting Trump for years now, and even if they went along Republican voters won't believe any of the charges against him anyhow.

Oh, and if Obama had ever said that the "President cannot obstruct justice" he would have been impeached the next day and removed from office by the end of the week.

Taxing Our Patience, Con't

At a bowling alley in suburban Detroit, the Washington Post talks about the GOP tax heist.

A 60-year-old retiree bowling with a group of girlfriends said she’s tired of the middle class having to pay more so the wealthy can become even wealthier. A few lanes away, a middle-aged woman with frizzy gray hair said that the more she hears about the plan, the more she hates it. And a group of young guys in matching shirts said they didn’t even know the proposal was in the works, although they seemed skeptical that their taxes would ever go down in a meaningful way.

Ron Stephens, a 49-year-old Republican who works in purchasing for the auto industry and wrote in Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for president, said he doesn’t expect to benefit under the proposal. Any gains he might make thanks to a tax cut would probably be washed out by changes to other deductions that he usually takes, he said.

And don’t get him started on cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, as the Senate bill passed early Saturday does.

I'm betting most of folks like Ron there are worried, but they'll vote Republican anyway.  Michigan folks who voted for Trump are certainly happy about the GOP tax bill because, all together now, IT WILL HELP SMALL BUSINESSES!

A few miles away at Art and Jake’s Sports Bar, two business partners were practically giddy at the idea of the corporate tax rate going down. Jeff Hinsperger and Mark Matheson own the World Class Equipment Co. in Shelby, which builds robots to work in automobile manufacturing plants. Both voted for Trump.

Business has been booming — although they said they have struggled to get the financing needed to do all the job requests they receive. With more cash from paying less in taxes, they said, the company could finance more on its own, allowing them to hire more employees and invest in even more equipment.

“Everyone thinks business owners are greedy,” Matheson said. “We’re not. We’re the ones with everything at risk.”

Sitting across the bar that night were two other businessmen who were in town for work — one from Indianapolis, the other from Tennessee. Both were longtime Republicans. Neither of them expects to benefit from the tax cuts, and they’re skeptical that cuts for corporations will really trickle down to them. Both scoffed when asked whether members of Congress or the president care about the middle class.

They know the Republicans don't care about them.  But they'll never make the connection about what they need to do to fix the problem.

“They’re not looking out for the middle class,” said Andrew Stewart, 30, a former hair stylist who works as a restaurant server while he’s studying to become an occupational therapist. “The separation between the middle class and the upper class, it’s growing, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence. . . . It’s easier to control people when they’re under your thumb.”

Stewart supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for president in the primaries and believes Sanders was robbed of the Democratic nomination. He voted in the general election for Jill Stein of the Green Party, which he doesn’t regret — although he disapproves of how Trump is running the country.

“I feel completely unrepresented,” he said, while studying at a local Starbucks. “I don’t feel like I’m represented at all. It’s just a sad time in American history.”

The Republicans don't care about the middle class, everyone agrees on that.  Even the ones that support Trump now admit that.  The ones that don't like Trump are really upset he's President. If only there was an alternative to the Republicans.

And the ones who will actually benefit from the tax bill?  Will they create jobs?  Funny you should ask.

Getting lunch in the mall food court that afternoon was Mike Papastamatis, a 33-year-old dentist who is a partner in a local practice and expects his tax rate to fall about 10 points if the “pass-through” deduction is increased. While that will benefit him, he said the practice is fully staffed right now and there’s no need to expand.

Most folks are upset about this bill.  They know it's a giant scam to enrich the ultra-rich at their expense.

But these same people in 2018 and 2020?

They all have something in common, you see.

They'd rather vote for the party that gives their money to those hundreds, thousands, millions of times wealthier than themselves rather than the party that gives their money to those with even less.

They will never, ever, ever vote for the Democrats. They'll stay home maybe, possibly, kind of.  They'll vote for the Green or the Independence Party But they'll never vote for the Democrat. That's an admission of failure.

Stop chasing these voters, Dems. They will never vote for you.

Pay attention to the ones who do.