Susan Glasser notes that the Mueller investigation owns Trump’s attention.

Given the constant, repetitive nature of Trump’s “witch hunt” tweets, it might be tempting to ignore them. That would be a mistake. The chief executive’s attention is the most valuable resource of any Administration—what a President spends his time on reflects, more than anything else, an Administration’s true priorities. By those standards, the “witch hunt” is the overriding priority of the Trump White House, and it will be even more so in the new year, when the special counsel, Robert Mueller, moves toward a conclusion and a new, Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, with the power and the votes to subpoena and impeach Trump, takes

Adam Schiff and Jeffrey Toobin talked over burgers in downtown Burbank the other day. Schiff says it’s about The Monayyy.

Schiff went on, “At the end of the day, what should concern us most is anything that can have a continuing impact on the foreign policy and national-security policy of the United States, and, if the Russians were laundering money for the Trump Organization, that would be totally compromising.” Schiff hypothesizes that Trump went beyond using his campaign and the Presidency as a vehicle for advancing his business interests, speculating that he may have shaped policy with an eye to expanding his fortune. “There’s a whole constellation of issues where that is essentially the center of gravity,” Schiff said.

The Republican coup in Wisconsin is complete.

Scott Walker, the outgoing Republican governor of Wisconsin, on Friday signed into law measures that diminish the power of his Democratic successor and expand the authority of Republican lawmakers who teamed up with him over the last eight years to move the state firmly to the right.

Those Republican lawmakers? They’re still in the majority only because Wisconsin is so gerrymandered in favor of Republicans. The vote for Dems was much larger.

Mr. Walker signed the measures over the objections of the incoming governor and despite vehement protest in the State Capitol as Republican lawmakers rushed the bills through in a hastily-called session last week. Tony Evers, the Democrat who beat Mr.

The LA Review of Books has An Open Letter from Queer Studies Scholars. It is not an intelligent or persuasive letter.

To Whom It May Concern,

We write to respond to Christopher Reed and Christopher Castiglia’s unfortunate letter regarding Grace Lavery’s essay on using appropriate pronouns in the classroom context. While we debated taking up the many points of Professor Castiglia and Professor Reed’s very long essay, we feel that the best response is a simple reiteration of the final lines of Professor Lavery’s essay:

Deadnaming and misgendering are not acceptable scholarly practices, and they are not covered by the principle of academic freedom.

They “feel” (not think) that is the best response? And they call themselves scholars?

“Deadnaming” … Read the rest

/2 "Not a rich man after decades in uniform, Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to avoid bankruptcy and spare his son from becoming a legal target." Well, maybe. Those are strong incentives. And the financial pressure of defending a case is huge. But @WSJ just takes this as given.

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/4 Then this: "Mr. McCabe and FBI officials “decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.”" Good God.

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/6 "This is “something I probably wouldn’t have done or wouldn’t have

Maddow argued yesterday that the AMI confession puts the three miniTrumps in the hot seat.

… Read the rest

The US Senate just did what Trump has repeatedly refused to do.

The Senate cast two historic votes Thursday to end U.S. participation in the Saudi-led war effort in Yemen and condemn the Saudi crown prince as responsible for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, delivering clear political rebukes of President Trump’s continued embrace of the kingdom.

The unanimous vote to hold Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman responsible for Khashoggi’s murder reflects the extent to which senators of both parties have grown tired of Trump’s continued defense of Mohammed’s denials. It also puts significant pressure on leaders in the House — where the president’s Saudi policy is a much more partisan issue — to allow members to cast a similar

I can’t tell if this is hilarious or terrifying.

did… did a wall write this? pic.twitter.com/wODbt45X52

— Benjamin Dreyer (@BCDreyer) December 13, 2018

Talking Points Memo cautiously prods the suspicious object:

The Department of Homeland Security sounded a bit like Cookie Monster or The Incredible Hulk in a press release Wednesday detailing how the agency has spent the roughly $1.67 billion allocated to it for fence and wall construction and renovation over the past 19 months.

“DHS is committed to building wall and building wall quickly,” the release read. “We are not replacing short, outdated and ineffective wall with similar wall.  Instead, under this President we are building a wall that is 30-feet high.”

To me it sounds like … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Seth on He thinks the people would revolt.

As was obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention since Bush the Lesser’s misbegotten reign, Republicans rule as though divinely mandated despite (or, rather, because of) their having failed to secure a mandate, and they gin up their supporters to revolt whenever they don’t get their way.

People have already forgotten that Obama faced two organized, armed revolts during his tenure, instigated by the Bundy clan (klan?) and inspiring thousands of their fellow rubenicks to join them in spirit, and dozens in person. These revolts amounted to an insurrection that hasn’t been properly dealt with, especially given the wisdom of the juries involved.

The next Democratic administration, … Read the rest

Ian Bushfield of the BC Humanists Association writes:

Section 296 of Canada’s Criminal Code said:

Offence

296 (1) Every one who publishes a blasphemous libel is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.

Question of fact

(2) It is a question of fact whether or not any matter that is published is a blasphemous libel.

Saving

(3) No person shall be convicted of an offence under this section for expressing in good faith and in decent language, or attempting to establish by argument used in good faith and conveyed in decent language, an opinion on a religious subject.

As Jeremy Patrick wrote in his PhD dissertation, the provision has been

Originally a comment by Pliny the in Between on “Flynn Entrapment”.

Counterpoint: Ok, so a guy who was NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES pulls a classic Louis Renault and claims that he is shocked – SHOCKED I SAY to learn that lying to the FBI is a crime.

I’ve come up with a metric to help:

1-who does background checks on all candidates for sensitive positions in the US government?

a-The FBI b-The FBI c-The FBI d-a,b and c

2-True or false, the following was part of the SCOTUS ruling in Brogan vs The United States: “Our legal system provides methods for challenging the Government’s right to ask questions — lying is not one … Read the rest

Elinor Lipman sends a poem:

I do not like that Cohen guy,
I would not like to testify.
Not in New York, not in D.C.,
Not on the stand! You let me be!
I will not help a refugee,
I would not, could not save a tree.
I do not need a Chief of Staff!
(Send resumé and photograph.)

— Elinor Lipman (@ElinorLipman) December 13, 2018

… Read the rest

Oh ffs.

A court filing shows the ugly tactics employed by James Comey’s FBI: https://t.co/Q1wMsmR3D4 via @WSJOpinion

— WSJ Editorial Page (@WSJopinion) December 13, 2018

This shit must have been dictated over the phone by Trump and then put into coherent English by someone at the WSJ. It reeks of Trumpism.

Of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s many targets, the most tragic may be former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The former three-star general pleaded guilty last year to a single count of lying to the FBI about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Now we learn from Mr. Flynn’s court filing to the sentencing judge that senior bureau officials acted in a way to set him up

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on But they didn’t tell him he shouldn’t lie.

I’m not a big crusader for the rights of criminal defendants, but it’s amazing how, throughout this whole process, conservatives have been discovering their outrage at stuff that they couldn’t be bothered to bat an eye about before.

Investigators tried to lull a non-custodial* suspect into a false sense of security instead of warning that they were in legal jeopardy and should get a fucking lawyer? SHOCKING! (*-If you’re not in custody, i.e., free to leave, then Miranda doesn’t apply. Cops like to be very vague on that point — they want you to think that you have to stay and answer their questions, … Read the rest

Things I don't care about, like at all: whether FBI agents "set up" Flynn to lie by not pointing a grown man to a big sign that says "don't lie to us."

Things I do care about: the head national security advisor in the United States lying to FBI agents about contacts with Russia.

— Robert Mueller's Diary (@GhostfaceKHZ) December 12, 2018

What I’m saying. Did he think they’d be cool with it if he lied to them?!

I feel bad for this poor, uneducated rube the FBI agents entrapped in this way. How could this schmo possibly understand the national security apparatus he was up against?

So. What did this guy do for a living?

— Derek Kerton (@derekkerton)

… Read the rest