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 office.

So, given the fact of Trump’s occupation of the White House, that’s a good thing. Time Trump spends tweeting “WITCH HUNT!!” and its cognates is time he doesn’t spend tearing up environmental laws or begging the North Koreans to stay in his hotels.

Largely overlooked in the daily flood of Trump-era news, a week ago, his former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said in an interview that Trump had repeatedly pressed him to violate the law. “I’d have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you wanna do, but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law, it violates treaty.’ He got really frustrated,” Tillerson said. “I think he grew tired of me being the guy who told him, ‘You can’t do that.’ ”

Trump’s insults in response drew attention away from the substance, but that won’t last.

Tillerson’s allegation was more than just another bout of Trump-era name-calling between a former Secretary of State who once called his boss a “fucking moron” and the President who fired him by tweet. Imagine Tillerson before Congress come January, testifying under oath and live on television, about which laws Trump told him to break.

Oh yes; imagine that. How interesting it will be.

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. “Obviously, that issue is implicated in efforts to build Trump Tower in Moscow. It’s implicated in the money that Trump is bragging he was getting from the Saudis. And why shouldn’t he love the Saudis? He said he was making so much money from them.” As the Washington Post has reported, Trump has sold a superyacht and a hotel to a Saudi prince, a $4.5-million apartment near the United Nations to the Saudi government, and many other apartments to Saudi nationals, and, since Trump became President, his hotels in New York and Chicago have seen significant increases in bookings from Saudi visitors. In a break with the Republican congressional leadership, Trump refuses to take action against Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding substantial evidence that Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and the putative head of state, directed the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who lived in the United States.

It’s indisputable that Trump has made money off the Saudis; it’s in dispute whether or not that had any effect on his policy decisions.

Schiff also pointed out that Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, met with the C.E.O. of a state-owned Russian bank in December, 2016, and that, the following month, Erik Prince, an informal adviser to the Trump campaign, met with the leader of a Russian sovereign-wealth fund in the Seychelles, an East African archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean. “The American people have a right to know that their President is working on their behalf, not his family’s financial interests,” Schiff said. “Right now, I don’t think any of us can have the confidence that that’s the case.” All of these subjects, Schiff averred, were fair game for investigation by the committee that he will soon chair.

He goes from a staff of eleven to one of twenty-five; he says they’ve been deluged with resumes. Unlike Trump (I said that part).

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. Walker in the November election, has suggested he may file suit over the changes.

Walker is a “screw the underlings” Republican.

Mr. Walker, a former legislator and county executive who then was little known outside of the Milwaukee area, won a crucial advantage when he became governor in 2011: Voters not only flipped the governor’s seat to Republican, but also both chambers of the Legislature.

Results came immediately. Within weeks, Mr. Walker announced the plan that would define his tenure and make him a national name. He wanted to shrink collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers in a state with deep roots in the labor movement.

Outside Mr. Walker’s Capitol office, protesters marched and drummed and chanted fury at what they saw as an effort to weaken unions and diminish Democrats. But Mr. Walker pushed through the measure, survived a recall election and went on to guide Wisconsin on a conservative path, adopting a concealed carry law, expanding private school vouchers, enacting so-called right-to-work legislation, passing voter identification rules and setting work rules for Medicaid recipients.

More guns; more private schools and thus worse public schools; weaker unions; voter suppression; no health insurance for the poor. What a glorious vision, huh?

To Mr. Walker’s supporters, the bills Mr. Walker acted on Friday were pragmatic ways to shore up Republican policies and establish reasonable checks on the incoming Democrats. Signing the bills would secure his legacy, they say, not sully it.

Excuse me, one party is not supposed to put any “checks” on a rival party. That’s not how this is supposed to work.

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” and “misgendering” are not straightforwardly anything, including practices or scholarly practices, because the words are jargon, and quite recently coined jargon at that. They are jargon and they are not even scholarly jargon but rather political jargon, and politics of a very peculiar kind. It’s fundamentally meaningless to announce that “deadnaming” and “misgendering” are not acceptable scholarly practices, which makes it very odd to call it “the best response.”

And even if the two jargon words were perfectly cromulent words, the sentence that contains them would remain simply an abrupt and unargued assertion. It’s downright weird to see people who claim to be scholars calling an abrupt and unargued assertion “the best response.” It isn’t.

And then there’s the fact that the assertion is not even true. Scholarship takes no position on the made-up crimes of “deadnaming” and “misgendering” because scholarship has better things to do.

After that fatuous claim they do go on to make a token effort to present something resembling an argument, but the result is not compelling.

We reject the idea that misgendering is an exercise of academic freedom. As teachers and scholars, we take very seriously the responsibility to challenge our students intellectually, but that responsibility in no way translates into the capacity to selectively refute their dignity and right to self-definition.

Once again that’s not scholarly anything, it’s hackneyed and basically meaningless political jargon. What does “refute their dignity” even mean? It should at the very least be something like “refute their claims to dignity,” but even then it would be feeble, because it’s not self-evident that anyone’s dignity is dependent on other people’s tactful acceptance of counterfactual personal claims. You could argue that it’s the other way around: that tactful acceptance of counterfactual personal claims treats the claimant like a child who has to be humored, which is not as dignified as all that. And then, what “right to self-definition”? Again: that’s not a real thing, and certainly not a real scholarly thing. There is no such thing as a broad, general, binding right to define ourselves. I can “define myself” as a Supreme Court Justice if I like, but it won’t get me a seat on the bench or even the courtesy of being called Justice.

That is not academic freedom; it is a form of self-serving aggression worthy of Title IX intervention on the part of the institution.

What? Self-serving? How is it self-serving? Step one, say women are women; step two, face barrage of hostility; step three, ???; step 4, profit!? It’s not self-serving, it’s resistance to being ordered to believe lies. Is it aggression though? No, it is not aggression. Is it a Title IX crime? Nope not that either.

If this shit is scholarship give me ignorance.

/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 gotten away with in a more organized administration,” Mr. Comey boasted on MSNBC this weekend." Look: he's not talking about not giving the "warning." Because NOBODY does ….

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/8 "If the goal was to set a legal trap, it worked." Well, "legal trap" is sort of dignifying it. They went in thinking he might lie and thus provide leverage over him, and he did. It's a very common tactic. Wrong? Perhaps. Even slightly unusual or notable? No.

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/10 Regarding the FBI agents not showing him the transcript they already had, by which they already knew what the truth was: again, an utterly routine and mundane tactic at every level of law enforcement. Let the target lie, use the lie as leverage.

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/12 "He initially claimed he misremembered what was discussed, which is more believable than that a highly decorated officer would lie to FBI officers he agreed to see without counsel."

Oh God this is stupid. Smart, accomplished people tell stupid lies to the feds all the time.

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

/14 This might have reflected a sordid and low law enforcement tactic — going in knowing the facts fishing for a lie, then using the lie to leverage — but it's not entrapment, because they didn't INDUCE him to lie.

This op-ed is Trumpist garbage.
/end

— ThankYouForNotSmockingHat (@Popehat) December 13, 2018

The WSJ is a very serious publication.

Its *editorials* are generally like this, unfortunately.

— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) December 13, 2018

H/t Screechy Monkey

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

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 vote condemning the crown prince before the end of the year.

…

The votes came just hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis briefed House lawmakers behind closed doors — a meeting from which Republicans and Democrats emerged urging very different responses to Saudi Arabia and its crown prince.

Trump is left pretty isolated now…but it’s ok, he still has Pompeo.

Trump has refused to condemn Mohammed for the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi national. Pompeo has echoed Trump’s stance in public interviews, and behind closed doors as well, lawmakers said.

“All we heard today was more disgraceful ducking and dodging by the secretary,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.)…

Now about Raif Badawi…

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 Natasha and Boris in Rocky and Bullwinkle but that’s probably because I’m not familiar with Cookie Monster or The Incredible Hulk.

Anyway, it really is a press release from the real DHS.

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, even (or especially) if elected by a historic majority and run by a member of a historic minority, is certain to see another armed revolt that will very likely evolve into an insurrection. Republicans have stoked the flames of it for my entire lifetime, and now that their avatar is a living wheel of melted cheddar who says all the quiet parts out loud, there will be nothing to stop him from making good on his threat.

It doesn’t take a majority to revolt and destroy a society. It just takes a few percent, and a leader willing and eager to inspire them. I daresay they have the numbers to do a great deal of physical and political damage, when their tangerine generalissimo gives them the watchword.

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 part of the Code since 1892 and the last conviction was in 1927. Nevertheless, private prosecutions occurred throughout the 1920s and and 30s, with some happening into the 1970s. The most recent effort to invoke the law was in 1979 when an Anglican clergyman tried unsuccessfully to use it to censor a screening of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian.

Humanist and freethinking groups got together in 2016 to send a petition to parliament to get rid of the blasphemy law, aka section 296 of the Criminal Code.

Over 7400 Canadians signed that petition. As part of her response to the petition, Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould confirmed the blasphemy law was being considered as part of a broader effort of justice reform.

Almost a year after the launch of the petition, the Government included the repeal of section 296 in its bill to modernize the criminal code. Bill C-51 repeals a number of archaic and unconstitutional provisions of the Code and make a couple other amendments.

Well done Canada!

The Governor General still has to bestow or pronounce something called Royal Assent, but it looks as if that’s a (quite literal) formality.

H/t Kausik Datta

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 of them.”

3-Have you ever watched a TV or movie procedural that illustrated the consequences of lying to the FBI?

4-Have you ever watched a TV or movie procedural that suggested there were NO consequences of lying to the FBI?

5-Have you lived in a bunker all your life with only Fox News for knowledge of the outside world?

6-Rate how you would answer the following: How detrimental to one’s effectiveness as NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES would lying or woeful ignorance be? None at all Minimal Can’t Say Somewhat Pretty fucking crucial

7- On average, how many times is the following phrase uttered in a US courtroom on a daily basis? “Ignorance of the law is no excuse”

a-0 b-10 c-100 d-1000 e-a billion

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

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 for the fall.

So we’re supposed to think it’s no big deal that Flynn buddied up with the Russian ambassador but an OUTRAGE that the FBI didn’t remind Flynn that lying to the FBI is a crime? Aren’t Flynn and the FBI supposed to be on the same team? Both working for the good of the country, both on the side of legality and justice?

According to the FBI summary of the interview—known as a 302—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.”

Shocking, shocking. But so then the Journal’s point is that Flynn should have been free to lie to the FBI? That his lying to the FBI about his dealings with Russia should have been given a pass? That the problem here is not Flynn’s coziness with Putin’s gang but the FBI’s not telling the National Security Adviser to refrain from lying? Seriously?

If the goal was to set a legal trap, it worked. The two agents showed up at the White House within hours of Mr. McCabe’s call, and they reported in the 302 that General Flynn had been “relaxed and jocular” and “clearly saw the FBI agents as allies.” One of the agents was Peter Strzok, who is famous for his anti-Trump texts to his FBI paramour.

That’s the bit where I decided this has to have been dictated by Trump. The sheer stupid vulgarity of it.

Lol right on cue, the right-o-verse spins up the narrative of Flynn "entrapment"

He took money from an adversary of America and lied about it. He plotted to kidnap a US resident for money. He is a disgrace. This WSJ editorial is also a disgrace. pic.twitter.com/21qzs5Sv1d

— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) December 13, 2018

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, but they don’t want to have to give you a Miranda warning.)

Investigators asked questions they already knew the answers to just to see if they could generate some “lying to investigators” charges? OUTRAGEOUS!

A search warrant was issued on a mere affidavit from a law enforcement official containing hearsay? UNBELIEVABLE!

Authorities show up in full force to execute a warrant and seize every document or computer in sight? JACKBOOTED THUGS!

The government seizes a defendant’s assets as fruits of criminal activity and ties them up in civil forfeiture, even if it impairs the defendant’s ability to fund his defense? IS THIS REALLY AMERICA?

Prosecutors threaten criminals with maximum penalties unless they flip on their co-conspirators? CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S LEGAL!

All of the above happens all the time and is perfectly legal? YEAH, BUT THIS TIME IT’S HAPPENING TO PEOPLE WHO MATTER. NOT, YOU KNOW, THUGS. THOSE PEOPLE. C’MON, DON’T MAKE ME SAY IT….

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) December 12, 2018

Yes, Michael Cohen was Trump's personal lawyer, but more recently he was Deputy Finance Chair of the Republican National Committee. The Deputy Finance Chair of the RNC was just sentenced to 3 years in prison for felonies committed during the 2016 presidential election campaign.

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) December 12, 2018

Michael Cohen made the right decision to cooperate with the Special Counsel’s office. His sentencing today demonstrates that nobody is above the law.

Not the personal lawyer to the President of the United States.

Or the President himself.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) December 12, 2018

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, bub.