Spies Like Us, Con't

The Trump regime Ukraine scandal is only getting worse for the Tangerine Tyrant, but it wouldn't be our media if it wasn't an opportunity to use the completely fabricated nonsense against Joe Biden as "both sides do it!"

Despite the outrage that greeted reports of the president’s actions, Biden’s immediate response was no simple matter. His son Hunter Biden’s lucrative contracts with Ukraine — at the same time the vice president was in charge of U.S. policy toward the country raised — raised the prospect of fueling a narrative with downside political risk for Biden. 

“This puts him on the ropes over having to talk about this,” said Patrick Murray, a pollster with Monmouth University. “He certainly doesn’t want to talk about this, his family.” 

Murray suggested the ethical dimensions of the controversy — and the implications of Trump’s actions for impeachment, which Biden at present does not support — made any extended discussion of the story potentially perilous for Biden. 

“At the primary level, I don’t think Democrats would believe these charges [concerning Biden] because of how polarized the debate is right now, but then they could start worrying that this could hurt him if he is the nominee,” Murray said. “It’s ‘can Biden fight back? Will this hurt his ability to take Trump on fully?’ And will it undermine that electability argument that he’s been making?” 

The only way this becomes an issue for Biden is if the media makes this about Biden by writing stories about how this issue is really about Biden.  If this all seems familiar, I have some Hillary Clinton e-mails that would like a word with you.

The Village would love nothing more than for both Biden's Democratic primary rivals and Trump regime Republicans to attack him over this nonsense that I remind you was debunked back in May, and that was after the previous Ukraine government decided to close an investigation into Paul Manafort in exchange for military aid.  It all stinks.

Again, the Biden story appeared in May and was debunked a few weeks later, and let's not forget that the Ukrainina co-author of that bullshit NY Times story on Biden is now Volodymyr Zelensky's spokesman.The Biden story is disinformation, guys.  Pure and simple.

This is all complete nonsense.  Do not let these assholes do to Joe Biden what they did to Hillary and give us another four years of goddamn Donald Trump.

Hizzoner Hits The Showers

NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is out of the 2020 presidential race, and with his poll numbers somewhere within the margin of error of zero, it's no wonder.  But it turns out he's probably going to have political problems long after his quixotic quest, as the Trump regime doesn't forgive or forget a foe.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's presidential campaign is over, but concerns over his fundraising practices linger on. 

An official with the Federal Election Commission sent a letter to the mayor's presidential campaign, which ended Friday, highlighting a problem that has been the subject of multiple POLITICO reports and two formal complaints from watchdog groups.

In a July public filing, the de Blasio camp noted a $52,852 debt owed to the NY Fairness PAC, a state political action committee controlled by the mayor. The campaign had argued that this was a permissible loan from one organization to another. But the FEC's senior campaign finance analyst, Robin Kelly, wrote this week that the practice is not allowed by campaign finance rules. 

Such transfers are capped at $5,000 per election cycle, Kelly's letter said, meaning the campaign took more than ten times the permissible amount from the state PAC and spent it on travel and advertising. Kelly mandated that the campaign refile an amended report by late October that corrects the transfer, and noted that an audit of the campaign may follow. 

The campaign repaid the loan Thursday, the day it received the FEC’s letter, spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg said. 

Last year, de Blasio created a federal political action committee called Fairness PAC — ostensibly to fund his trips around the country advocating for progressive causes and to offer financial support to other left-leaning Democrats. However, the mayor also quietly created a state committee called NY Fairness PAC and used both to fund exploratory efforts for his own presidential campaign. 

Last month, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC illustrating why it found this practice problematic. Essentially, donors who had already given the max to de Blasio's presidential campaign were also donating to both of his PACs. And PAC money was being shifted back into the presidential warchest. 

“[The campaign] appears to have concocted a shell game to arrange for a small number of wealthy donors to support de Blasio’s presidential run above and beyond legal contribution limits,” the group's complaint said. 

Mayor de Blasio's semi-shady shell game aside, did anyone not expect the Trump regime to make ongoing trouble for somebody Trump has had an ongoing feud with for years?  FEC harassment is only the beginning, I suspect.  Trump's enemies' list is as long as his ridiculous ties, after all.

Still, de Blasio's cavalier attitude and pointless presidential run brought this retribution upon himself.  It doesn't look like he's going to pull a Bloomberg and try to get a third term or anything, there's no way City Council would play ball.  As to who will replace him, well he still has another two years to go on that, but the primary fights aren't that far off.

Deportation Nation, Con't

The deal for mass deportations of migrants and asylum seekers (and eventually undocumented and undesirable political enemies already in the country) the Trump regime pressured both Mexico and Guatemala to take may yet go to an eager El Salvador instead.

The United States planned to sign an agreement on Friday to help make one of Central America’s most violent countries, El Salvador, a haven for migrants seeking asylum, according to a senior Trump administration official. 

The official said acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan would sign a “cooperative asylum agreement.” 

Two other officials described the agreement as a first step measure in the governments’ working together on asylum. Details of the broad agreement will be hammered out in the weeks and months ahead, they said. The officials weren’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. 

The agreement could lead to migrants from third countries obtaining refuge in El Salvador even though many Salvadorans are fleeing their nation and seeking asylum in the United States. A Salvadoran delegation has been in the U.S. this week discussing the matter. 

It’s the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to force asylum-seekers in Central America to seek refuge outside the United States. Immigration officials also are forcing more than 42,000 people to remain in Mexico as their cases play out and have changed policy to deny asylum to anyone who transited through a third country en route to the southern border of the U.S. 

The senior administration official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. 

The agreement would be another step by the Trump administration aimed at stopping the flow of migrants coming into the United States. McAleenan also signed a so-called “safe third country” agreement with Guatemala, but officials in that country are still working out how it would be implemented. 

The arrangement with El Salvador was not described as a “safe third country” agreement, under which nations agree that their respective countries are safe enough and have robust enough asylum systems, so that if migrants transit through one of the countries they must remain there instead of moving on to another country. 

The U.S. officially has only one such agreement in place, with Canada, but has been working toward others in Honduras and agreed to the one in Guatemala that has not yet been implemented.

The courts have made it clear that without a safe third country agreement, the Trump regime can't begin mass deportations of millions out of the US.  Canada is big enough to not get pushed around by the US too, and besides, it's pretty easy to check to see if people came in through the southern US border or the northern one.

Honduras is the next country in line if Guatemala and El Salvador don't work out.  But the Trump regime can't begin the deportations without somewhere to actually send them, and the for-profit concentration camps on the US border will start becoming an albatross on Trump's neck for 2020 unless he proves he can empty them out.

Besides, his base will demand the deportations sooner rather than later.

Last Call For Wag The Dog, Con't

The effort to get Donald Trump's pressuring of Ukraine's government to go after Joe Biden off the front page of the news happened with a quickness, didn't it?

Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced Friday that U.S. air defense forces will be sent to Saudi Arabia. 

“The president has approved the deployment of U.S. forces, which will be defensive in nature,” Esper said at the Pentagon. 

The announcement is a response to last Saturday’s attack on two major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, which has been blamed on Iran. Saudi officials have said the strike was conducted with explosive drones and cruise missiles, and U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo described it as an “act of war.” 

Esper said the weapons were “Iranian produced and were not launched from Yemen,” where Iranian-backed militants had originally taken responsibility for it. “All indications are, Iran was responsible for the attack.”

Iran has denied launching the attack. 

President Trump was presented with military options earlier Friday. He has been under pressure from some hawkish Republicans to aggressively respond to Iran, but he has been reluctant to pursue military action. 

“The easiest thing I can do, like I could do it right in here, would say: Go ahead, folks, go do it,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. “And that would be a very bad day for Iran.” 

He added, “It’s all set to go, but I’m not looking to do that if I can.” 

Friday’s announcement comes days before Trump attends the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

If this all seems like 2003 again, that's because it is.  We'll be in a shooting war with Iran well before the elections.

Another Day In Gunmerica, Con't

Gun manufacturer Colt has been around for centuries, the iconic Connecticut-based maker of the AR-15 rifle says it will suspend, at least for now, civilian sales of its rifles because Americans have too many of the damn things, and sales are off.

Gun-maker Colt is suspending its production of rifles for the civilian market including the popular AR-15, the company said Thursday in a shift it attributed to changes in consumer demand and a market already saturated with similar weapons.

The company said it will focus instead on fulfilling contracts with military and police customers for rifles.

“The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity,” Colt’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, said in a written statement. “Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future.”

Veilleux said the company, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2016, remains committed to the Second Amendment. He said the company is expanding its lines of pistols and revolvers.
Despite a national debate on gun control, Colt’s decision seems driven by business considerations rather than politics, said Adam Winkler, a gun policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

FBI statistics show more than 2.3 million people applied for background checks to purchase guns in August, up from just over 1.8 million in July. Those applications, the best available statistic from tracking gun sales, has have been rising steadily, with a slight decline after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, something call the “Trump slump.”

Gun sales usually go up when guy buyers feel their access to such weapons are being threatened, Winkler said.

“Given these sales and the history of Colt being a completely disorganized, dysfunctional company that goes into bankruptcy and can’t keep anything going properly, my assumption is that this is a business decision that is being driven by their own business problems,” he said.

Still, Winkler said the company’s decision risks alienating and angering its remaining customer base.

“We’ve seen in the past that when gun manufacturers are viewed to have given in to gun-safety advocates, gun owners will boycott them and really hurt their business,” he said. “If they think a company like Colt is disrespecting their identity or giving in to the other side, Colt’s likely going to see serious damage to its other firearms brands too.”

Colt is getting out of the rifle business because there's too much competition, and also hey, these things are expensive when the economy is getting worse.  Whether anyone will believe the problem is the "law-abiding firearms owner" who needs that seventh AR-15 in pink for their 12-year-old daughter, well, that's a different story.

On the other hand, imagine being one of the oldest, most legendary gunsmiths in America in the 2010's when tens of millions of firearms were bought because of a scary black man as president and being so bad at it that you still go bankrupt once and possibly now twice.

Spies Like Us, Con't

Yesterday I offered up five possible foreign leaders that could have been the subject of Donald Trump's whistleblower-triggering "promise" that's dominated the news for the last cycle or so.  Now the Washington Post is confirming that it was indeed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who was the winning contestant, and yes, this all goes back to Trump threatening to cut off military aid to the country unless they offered up "evidence" on Joe Biden's son Hunter.

A whistleblower complaint about President Trump made by an intelligence official centers on Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter, which has set off a struggle between Congress and the executive branch.

The complaint involved communications with a foreign leader and a “promise” that Trump made, which was so alarming that a U.S. intelligence official who had worked at the White House went to the inspector general of the intelligence community, two former U.S. officials said.

Two and a half weeks before the complaint was filed, Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political newcomer who was elected in a landslide in May.

That call is already under investigation by House Democrats who are examining whether Trump and his attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani sought to manipulate the Ukrainian government into helping Trump’s reelection campaign. Lawmakers have demanded a full transcript and a list of participants on the call.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

The Democrats’ investigation was launched earlier this month, before revelations that an intelligence official had lodged a complaint with the inspector general. The Washington Post first reported on Wednesday that the complaint had to do with a “promise” that Trump made when communicating with a foreign leader. 

On Thursday, the inspector general testified behind closed doors to members of the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower’s complaint.

Over the course of three hours, Michael Atkinson repeatedly declined to discuss with members the content of the complaint, saying he was not authorized to do so.

He and the members spent much of their time discussing the process Atkinson followed, the statute governing his investigation of the complaint and the nature of an “urgent concern” that he believed it represented, according to a person familiar with the briefing, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Now we don't know for sure this all involves Rudy's adventures in Kiev, but the timeframe is certainly right, and well, this is Trump we're talking about here. We go back a couple weeks to when the Ukraine pressure story broke.

The strong-arming of Mr. Zelensky was openly reported to the New York Times last month by Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, who said he had met in Madrid with a close associate of the Ukrainian leader and urged that the new government restart an investigation of Mr. Biden and his son. Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, while Joe Biden, as vice president, urged the dismissal of Ukraine’s top prosecutor, who investigated the firm.

Mr. Giuliani also wants a probe of claims that revelations of payments by a Ukrainian political party to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, were part of a plot to wreck Mr. Trump’s candidacy. In other words, Trump associates want the Ukrainian government to prove that Ukraine improperly acted against Mr. Trump in the 2016 election; but they also want it to meddle in his favor for 2020.

Mr. Zelensky is incapable of delivering on either demand. The revelations about Mr. Manafort came from a Ukrainian legislator who was fighting for domestic reform, not Hillary Clinton. And the Biden case, which has already been investigated by Ukrainian authorities, is bogus on its face. The former vice president was one of a host of senior Western officials who pressed for the dismissal of the prosecutor, who was accused of blocking anti-corruption measures.

So again, the "Biden scandal" is nothing, completely made up, and Trump sent Rudy to lean on Ukraine's newbie president in order to get him to come up with "the goods".  Whatever Trump said to Zelensky was so shocking that again, somebody filed a whistleblower complaint knowing full well the House Judiciary would see it.

Something like "If you help me bury Joe Biden, I'll give you X, if you don't I promise you'll regret it."  Hell, who knows what Trump promised.  Probably super illegal though. Probably involving Putin, who you know, illegally annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine a few years back.

Stay tuned, this one's not going away anytime soon.

StupidiNews!

• A federal judge has blocked California's law requiring presidential candidates to submit their current tax returns in order to qualify for the presidential election, a full ruling is expected by October 1.
• Towns in Australia's northern state of Queensland are preparing for "Day Zero", the day in six months where water runs out and rationing may have to begin unless weather patterns change.
• Saudi coalition forces have launched a military operation in northern Yemen targeting Houthi rebels in retaliation of last weekend's drone attacks on Saudi oilfields.
• Amnesty International is accusing Hong Kong police of beating and torturing protesters as tensions are again flaring ahead of another round of planned weekend demonstrations.
• Amazon will order and roll out 100,000 electric delivery trucks over the next several years as the company announced plans for zero carbon emissions in 20 years.

Last Call For Separation Of Church And State Department

Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, like many large universities, get grants from the federal government to develop skills employers want, in this case, language skills necessary to help the State Department and intel community's insatiable need for countries and cultures of the Middle East.  No surprise here, this has been going on since 9/11.

What's new is that the Trump regime has decided that these NC schools aren't sufficiently portraying Islam as a threat to white Christian America enough, and that teaching people about Farsi or Arabic that also actually includes sufficient cultural context of Islam in the Islamic world is a problem, so much so to the racist, Islamophobic Trump regime that they are demanding this thorough and objective portrayal of 2 billion people as "not savages" be stopped immediately or all federal funding will be cut.

The Trump administration is threatening to cut funding for a Middle East studies program run by the University of North Carolina and Duke University, arguing that it’s misusing a federal grant to advance “ideological priorities” and unfairly promote “the positive aspects of Islam” but not Christianity or Judaism. 

An Aug. 29 letter from the U.S. Education Department orders the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies to revise its offerings by Sept. 22 or risk losing future funding from a federal grant that’s awarded to dozens of universities to support foreign language instruction. The consortium received $235,000 from the grant last year, according to Education Department data. 

A statement from the UNC-Chapel Hill says the consortium “deeply values its partnership with the Department of Education” and is “committed to working with the department to provide more information about its programs.” Officials at Duke declined to comment. The Education Department declined to say if it’s examining similar programs at other schools. 

Academic freedom advocates say the government could be setting a dangerous precedent if it injects politics into funding decisions. Some said they had never heard of the Education Department asserting control over such minute details of a program’s offerings. 

“Is the government now going to judge funding programs based on the opinions of instructors or the approach of each course?” said Henry Reichman, chairman of a committee on academic freedom for the American Association of University Professors. “The odor of right wing political correctness that comes through this definitely could have a chilling effect.” 

More than a dozen universities receive National Resource Center grants for their Middle East programs, including Columbia, Georgetown, Yale and the University of Texas. The Duke-UNC consortium was founded in 2005 and first received the grant nearly a decade ago. 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos ordered an investigation into the program in June after North Carolina Rep. George Holding, a Republican, complained that it hosted a taxpayer-funded conference with “severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric.” The conference, titled “Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities,” included a rapper who performed a “brazenly anti-Semitic song,” Holding said in an April 15 letter.

In a response , DeVos said she was “troubled” by Holding’s letter and would take a closer look at the consortium.

The inquiry joins a broader Education Department effort to root out anti-Semitism at U.S. universities. Speaking at a summit on the topic in July, DeVos attacked a movement to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians, calling it a “pernicious threat” on college campuses.

Betsy DeVos deciding that insufficient Islamophobia equals anti-Semitic teachings should concern everybody, regardless of religion.  But it's very interesting that Antisemitism here is described solely as "being critical of Israel". 

As I keep saying, we live in dark times.

Tidal Wave Of Trickery

With Donald Trump once again tweeting a red bullseye on Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's head with his latest vile lie, Greg Sargent asks if Dems are ready for the coming flood of fecal foolery that will be the 2020 Trump campaign.

On Wednesday, President Trump used his Twitter feed to share a video that falsely depicted Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) partying on the anniversary of 9/11. Yes, the president of the United States cheerfully trafficked in disinformation. 

This fact didn’t concern Trump in the slightest, since it afforded him the opportunity to thrill his followers with a disgusting display of anti-Muslim bigotry — or so he seemed to believe, anyway, which doesn’t speak too highly of Trump’s view of his supporters. 

You can find the whole backstory here. Trump retweeted a tweet from one of his favorite conspiracy theorists — one whose work he has amplified before — that had pirated a video of Omar dancing on another occasion from another tweet. Trump declared: “The new face of the Democrat Party!” 

Which raises a question: Are Democrats prepared for the tsunami of shamelessly propagandistic media manipulation and rank disinformation tactics that Trump and his network will unleash during the coming election?

One, Trump's stochastic terrorism is absolutely going to get at least one Democratic politician hurt or killed before the end of the 2020 campaign, that's a near-guarantee.   I truly hope Capitol Police are taking steps to protect Rep. Omar from, well, Donald Trump.

Two, the Democrats are completely unprepared for the ballistic barrage of bullshit coming.

One way to combat this problem that Democrats have discussed concerns adopting a kind of official party doctrine about the scourge of disinformation. Politico recently reported that Democratic state chairs are urging the Democratic National Committee to adopt a pledge in which the party and its committees and all leading candidates would forswear the use of such tactics, as well as vow not to utilize information obtained through hacks and other illicit means. 

The basic idea here is that the party should stand for the principle that all this amounts to an extremely serious state of affairs for liberal democracy. It’s a component of a much larger international trend in rising illiberal authoritarianism, and the broader goal is to undermine confidence in shared facts, information gathered in good faith and institutional sources of empirical inquiry as the basis for democratic deliberation.
Joe Biden has spoken about the problem in these sorts of terms. Yet it’s not clear the DNC is willing to adopt a pledge like this. 

Another approach has been to pressure social media companies. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign recently took this tack after a conspiracy theory falsely connected O’Rourke to the gunman who carried out recent mass murders in Texas. 

The claim was amplified by a couple of shadowy but prominent allies of Trump — which makes this a preview of what we’re likely to see directed at the Democratic nominee. 

In response, the O’Rourke campaign sent letters to top executives at Twitter, Facebook and Google, pointing out that these platforms are “being used every day to proliferate misinformation,” and “if they don’t do better in 2020, we may lose our democracy forever.” 

One move here might be to continue raising a big fuss in demanding more action by tech companies, though it’s not clear how much it will help. 

Still another idea, suggested by Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, is for many elements of the party to try to come together to forge a grand strategy for proactively combating disinformation. 

This might involve multiple party committees investing real money in people and technology designed to track and “out” disinformation, officials from party committees and leading campaigns agreeing to work together against the problem, and possibly even enlisting armies of outside supporters to swarm social media to snuff out disinformation before it gains traction. 

And, of course, another question is whether the news media is prepared for all of these possibilities.

A combination of all three responses would be most effective, as they address three different areas of the same problem, stopping Democrats from using misinformation, stopping the spread through social media, and proactively countering it are all needed.

But it's that lst observation, whether the media is ready, that's actually more important.

They're not.  Trump will string them along like puppets.  We've already seen them dance to his lies and repeat them constantly and uncritically.  Cutting Trump off from his supply of media glory would hurt him the most, but that will never happen.  Our media would never dare.

And so they will be part of the problem more than the solution.

Spies Like Us, Con't

Again, ever since the Barr Justice Department made it clear they were seeking a grand jury indictment against forme FBI Director Andrew McCabe, the leaks from the intel community against the Trump regime have stepped up considerably.

As part of that fight, last week House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Adam Schiff issued a subpoena to the office Director of National Intelligence over a formal whistleblower complaint that Schiff says was never acted upon.  The DNI's office refused to give the complaint to Schiff and things are getting very tense.  Greg Sargent:

The latest development: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has informed Schiff, the California Democrat and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, that he will not forward a whistleblower’s complaint to the committee, as required by law.

Yet the legal rationale for refusing to do this appears specious — and raises further questions as to why this is happening at all.

This all started when Schiff announced that the Inspector General at the ODNI had alerted him to a whistleblower’s complaint that had been submitted to him. Schiff noted that the IG assessed the complaint as “credible.”

But as Schiff noted, the acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire, has not forwarded the complaint to the Intelligence Committee.
There is a process for whistleblowers in such situations, one that has been established by federal law. A whistleblower must first submit a complaint to the IG, who determines whether it’s an “urgent concern” and “credible.” If so, the DNI “shall” forward the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees.

The idea here is that this process allows a member of the intelligence community to raise concerns about potential lawbreaking or other abuses with Congress, so it can exercise oversight over those abuses, while ensuring that classified information remains protected. This is done via the independent inspector general at first, insulating the whistleblower against agency-head retaliation, which is also provided for in the statute.

In this case, Schiff announced, the inspector general notified the committee that this whistleblower’s complaint did constitute an urgent concern and is credible — yet Maguire still hadn’t forwarded the complaint and relevant associated materials to the committee.

So Schiff called on the DNI to forward the materials, and if he failed to do that, to appear before Congress on Thursday.

Now Maguire has sent a new letter to Schiff once again refusing to forward the complaint.

But late last night the stakes on the mysterious complaint became huge.

The whistleblower complaint that has triggered a tense showdown between the U.S. intelligence community and Congress involves President Trump’s communications with a foreign leader, according to two former U.S. officials familiar with the matter. 

Trump’s interaction with the foreign leader included a “promise” that was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver, but his direct involvement in the matter has not been previously disclosed. It raises new questions about the president’s handling of sensitive information and may further strain his relationship with U.S. spy agencies. One former official said the communication was a phone call.

And now things become clear.  The DNI's office was almost certainly instructed by Bill Barr to ignore the law on the complaint because it directly involved Donald Trump doing something wildly inappropriate and quite possibly illegal to boot.

So the question is, who is the foreign leader, and what promise was made?  Off the top of my head, I can think of five leaders who would fit the bill of getting a wild Trump promise:

• Russia's Vladimir Putin
• Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan
• Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky
• UK's Boris Johnson
• Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu

There's also our strongman in Venezuela, Juan Guaido as a possibility, but he's not leader of the country.  Not yet, anyway, and not without, say, a promise of US military intervention.  Still, a long shot.

At this level of the game, the whistleblower would definitely earn every bit of Trump's seething vengeance against those he sees as disloyal to him.  It's also somebody who would have had access to Trump's conversations with foreign leaders, which means they have serious clearance and responsibilities.  Finally, it's somebody who came forward to burn Trump on this, the promise being so outlandish that the person felt the need to essentially end their career and to risk facing almost certain Justice Department harassment and possible prosecution.

It's a mystery to be sure, but I bet we're going to get answers, and soon.  Bonus exit question: is this the reason why former DNI Dan Coats resigned, because he was told by Barr to spike this whistleblower request, knowing full well what it was?

Leaks can be deadly, you know.  Trump pissed off the wrong people.

StupidiNews!

• Canadian PM Justin Trudeau is apologizing for a 2001 incident in which he dressed up in blackface while a working as a teacher at a Vancouver school.
• Furious pushback from conservative groups and the NRA have all but scuttled Wednesday's White House proposal to support a bipartisan Senate firearms background check bill.
• Donald Trump is seeking options to deal with Iran short of military action including new sanctions as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Saudi Arabia.
• After the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter-point on Wednesday, Donald Trump  blasted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Twitter.
• A new study finds half of US homes will still not have access to fiber broadband by 2025, and it would take $70 billion to upgrade infrastructure to get that number to 90% by then.

Last Call For The Reach To Impeach, Con't

On one hand, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is furious at the way former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski treated Tuesday's House Judiciary hearing as a joke and as a national platform for his US Senate ambitions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of lawmakers Wednesday evening that Corey Lewandowski should have been held in contempt “right then and there” when he talked over members, dodged their questions and promoted his Senate campaign from a House hearing. 

In a small huddle with lawmakers from across the caucus, Pelosi (D-Calif.) complained that no witness should be able to treat members of Congress like President Trump’s former campaign manager did during a Tuesday hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, according to three people familiar with the exchange. 

“I would have held him in contempt right then and there,” she said.

Several lawmakers in the room took her remarks as a dig at House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who chose not to hold Lewandowski in contempt for his defiant behavior on Tuesday.

Technically, staff would have had to draft up a contempt resolution to vote on in committee. And Democrats thought it would be better to keep the focus on Trump.

Others, however, were outraged and feel like the committee looked weak for not responding. The panel, however, could choose to move forward with contempt at a later day.

Pelosi spokeswoman Ashley Etienne confirmed the exchange, saying in a statement that “in a meeting today, a member commented on the level of disrespect that Lewandowski displayed at the hearing for the Committee and Congress’s authority to uncover the truth.”

“Speaker Pelosi agreed that his behavior was beyond the pale and contemptible,” she said. “The Speaker went on to say that he could have been held in contempt right then and there.”

On the other hand, she also is furious at House Judiciary Democrats for wanting to impeach.

In a closed-door meeting last week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stunned lawmakers and aides with a swipe at Democratic staff on the House Judiciary Committee. 

Pelosi criticized the panel’s handling of impeachment in harsh terms, complaining committee aides have advanced the push for ousting President Donald Trump far beyond where the House Democratic Caucus stands. Democrats simply don’t have the votes on the floor to impeach Trump, Pelosi said. 

“And you can feel free to leak this,” Pelosi added, according to multiple people in the room. Pelosi’s office declined to comment on the meeting. 

It was the latest sign of the widening schism between Pelosi and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, two longtime allies who are increasingly in conflict over where to guide the party at one of its most critical moments. 

Both Pelosi and Nadler, who have served in the House together for more than 25 years, insist their relationship remains strong. But their rift over impeachment is getting harder and harder to paper over amid Democrats’ flailing messaging on the topic and a growing divide in the caucus. 

Whether the two veteran lawmakers can get on the same page will determine whether the party avoids a rupture that threatens its chances of holding on to the House majority and beating Trump in 2020. 

“I think the speaker wants to be careful of all the different members of the caucus,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a vocal impeachment advocate. “She doesn’t always want to use the word ‘impeachment’ but believe me, she signed off on every piece of what has been put forward.”

Pelosi's going to need far more than just the 55-60%  of House Dems currently favoring impeachment, and it's pretty clear that enough of them don't want to proceed...and never will.

So, Pelosi can be mad at Jerry Nadler all she wants to be, but if she keeps walking down the middle of the road on this issue, she's going to get run over by a truck eventually.

On the gripping hand, Lewandowski did all but admit to obstruction of justice once Democratic party lawyers at the hearing got a hold of his ass.

As it turns out, though, the morning session with all the committee members having their say was just the warm-up act. In its vote last week, the committee had passed a rule allowing staff counsel to pose questions for half an hour in these public impeachment hearings. Barry Berke, a lawyer for the Democratic members, then took over the hearing and it was like night and day. 

Most of the press has focused on the moment when Berke cornered Lewandowski by showing that he lied repeatedly on television about this incident and his interactions with the Mueller team. After much hemming and hawing his explanation was "I have no obligation to be honest with the media because they are just as dishonest as everybody else." (Who else? )

But Berke teased out another colorful detail that has passed unnoticed. Despite the White House order that Lewandowski shouldn't speak of any conversations with the president other than those specifically referenced in the Mueller report, it turns out that he has written a couple of books one of which is called "Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency." It features many conversations with the president, which the White House apparently had no objections to publishing. One of the anecdotes has Trump suggesting to Lewandowski that he might join the administration at the level of Jared Kushner to run the Russia 2016 election interference investigation. 

As Berke went on with his relentless fusillade of questions, Lewandowski became increasingly distressed. He had repeatedly claimed that he had never read the Mueller report. As Berke's 30 minutes were almost done, he asked Lewandowski whether he took the report lightly, reminding him that he had been autographing copies of the report just last week, while joking that he couldn't sign every page where his name appeared because there were too many of them. Lewandowski became upset and said:

I'm outraged at your characterization of my statements. Never have I said that, never have I called into question the validity of the Mueller Report or alluded to the fact that I wanted Russia to interfere ... 

Every time one of the principal figures confirms the Mueller report, another impeachment count gets its wings. 

Whereas Lewandowski had been cocky and derisive toward the members in the early session, he was crumbling after 30 minutes of solid questioning designed to show him as the weasel he is. It was the most effective line of questioning we've seen in a hearing in ages and it shows how important it is that Democrats allow staff lawyers to interrogate the witnesses rather than having members of Congress get cut off after five minutes, only to move on to another questioner from the other side and a completely different subject.

The Dems are actu ally getting somewhere, and Nadler is leading the way.

Pelosi sure as hell is making it hard for him though.

Filling In For The Mustache

Continuing a tradition of Donald Trump going "This marginally qualified person would be great for the job because they are loyal to me!" and filling White House vacancies caused by firing people who dared to disagree with him, Trump has named career diplomat Robert O'Brien to the post of National Security Adviser, replacing the fired John Bolton's mustache.

O’Brien was among a list of five contenders Trump named the day before, a list that had apparently been narrowed from about 15 in the days immediately after Bolton’s ouster.
Unlike Bolton, O’Brien is not a big name in the intelligence and national security world — Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s former chief of staff who was also considered for the post, said he knows next to nothing about O’Brien except that he “seems to have pretty good credentials on paper.” 

Asked whether the Senate Intelligence Committee knew anything about O’Brien, an aide said, “nope, not really.” 

O’Brien, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz, comes aboard as Trump faces a number of crises in the Middle East, including attempts to broker peace in Afghanistan with the Taliban as well as between the Israelis and Palestinians. 

The administration is also grappling with how to confront an increasingly hostile Iranian regime, on which Trump announced a fresh package of sanctions just moments before revealing that he'd tapped O'Brien for his new post. 

Trump has also thrown out the possibility of a third nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un prior to next year’s election, in addition to the prospect of reaching a new arms deal with Russia and continuing efforts to beat back the Islamic State — all of which will require O’Brien’s involvement. 

Prior to joining the Trump administration, O’Brien served as co-chairman of the State Department's public-private partnership for justice reform in Afghanistan under both President Barack Obama and George W. Bush. He also served as a U.S. Representative to the U.N. General Assembly in 2005, where he worked alongside Bolton. 

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force one Wednesday, Trump praised O’Brien, an aide to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with whom he’s worked with to free Americans held captive abroad, as “fantastic.” 

Trump has frequently touted his administration’s record in freeing American hostages — sometimes referring to himself as “chief hostage negotiator” — at times giving himself an outsize role in efforts to free American hostages. The president recently made a show of dispatching O’Brien to Sweden to assist in the case of rapper A$AP Rocky, who’d been jailed on assault charges.

O'Brien made Trump look smart, and he's familiar with foreign policy, so he gets the job.  Whether he actually wants it as the world is rapidly speeding towards a US shooting war with Iran, is yet to be determined.  Remember: this is still someone willingly working for Donald Trump.

Trump Trades Blows, Con't

Don't look now, but the "roaring" Trump economy just sprang a $53 billion leak and needed the most repairs since the bad old days of the 2008 Great Recession.

Borrowing rates skyrocketed on Tuesday in a corner of the markets the public rarely notices but that is critical to the functioning of the global financial system. 

The spike in overnight borrowing rates forced the New York Federal Reserve to come to the rescue with a special operation aimed at easing stress in financial markets. 

It was the NY Fed's first such rescue operation in a decade, the last occurring in late 2008. 

"It's unprecedented, at least in the post-crisis era," said Mark Cabana, rates strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

On Tuesday morning, the NY Fed launched what's called an "overnight repo operation," during which the central bank attempts to ease pressure in markets by purchasing Treasuries and other securities. The goal is to pump money into the system to keep borrowing costs from creeping above the Fed's target range . 

The first attempt by the NY Fed was canceled because of "technical difficulties." 

Minutes later, the NY Fed successfully injected $53 billion into the system.
The episode demonstrates evidence of emerging strains in financial markets and raises concern that the Federal Reserve could be losing its grip on short-term rates. 

"The funding markets are clearly stressed," said Guy LeBas, managing director of fixed income strategy at Janney Capital Markets. "It's going to require Fed action." 

The NY Fed announced plans late Tuesday to hold another repurchase agreement operation on Wednesday that would aim to repurchase up to an additional $75 billion. 

The rate on overnight repurchase agreements hit 5% on Monday, according to Refinitiv data. That's up from 2.29% late last week and well above the target range set in July by the Federal Reserve, which is 2% to 2.25%. The surge continued Tuesday, with the overnight rate hitting a high of 10% before the NY Fed stepped in. 

Although it doesn't get as much attention as the Dow or the 10-year Treasury rate, this overnight market plays a central role in modern finance. It allows banks to quickly and cheaply borrow money, for short periods of time, often to buy bonds like Treasuries. This market broke down during the 2008 financial crisis. 

However, analysts drew a distinction between the current period of stress and what happened during the crisis. Back then, investors were deeply worried about the financial health of banks. Today, banks are hauling in record profits and balance sheets look sturdy. 

It's unclear what exactly is causing the stress in the overnight market, or how long it will last. 

"No one knows why this is happening," Jim Bianco CEO of Bianco Research, said on Twitter. "If it persists more than another day or two, it will be a problem."

If this all is starting to smell like we're back in 2007, heading for disaster in 2008, there are now a lot of similarities, too many in fact to ignore.  And Donald Trump is in charge of fixing this.  I'll tell you what happened, the markets honestly think Trump is going to bomb Iran and send us all to hell.

Stay tuned.  It's only going to get worse from here.  Much worse.

StupidiNews!

• An 18-year-old Oklahoma woman was arrested after purchasing an AK-47 rifle and making threats about attacking her former high school and killing "400 people" there.
• Pennsylvania GOP state Sen. Michael Folmer was arrested Tuesday and charged with several counts relating to child pornography, a search warrant finding images on his phone.
• Israel's main opposition candidate Benny Gantz is claiming victory in Tuesday's national elections after PM Benjamin Netanyahu, facing bribery indictments, was unable to form a government.
• Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is ruling out bilateral talks with Donald Trump ahead of the annual UN meeting of world leaders unless the US lifts sanctions.
• Comcast is joining the ranks of streaming content providers with its NBC Peacock service, expected to launch in April 2020.