Month: January 2017

A glitter of generals?
by Tom Sullivan

Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, testifies before the Committee on Armed Services during his confirmation hearing for appointment to Commander, United States Joint Forces Command and Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation. U.S. Navy photo, 2007.

To hear it told, having retired four-star general James Mattis heading the Defense Department for Donald Trump might be one way to “reign in” (pun intended) Trump’s impulsiveness. Fred Kaplan writes at Slate about Mattis’ Senate confirmation hearings:

To many Trump skeptics, this has always been Mattis’ main appeal—that his street cred as a retired four-star Marine general and a noted scholar of history and strategy would serve as restraining influence to Trump’s unpredictability and to the extreme belligerence of the president-elect’s national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

A normally wary Senate even issued a waiver to a law preventing retired generals from serving as defense secretary until seven years after retirement. Mattis has only clocked four.

Sen. John McCain, the committee’s chairman, cited testimony from earlier this week by two scholars on civil-military relations who strongly supported the law barring recently retired officers from taking the job but also strongly supported making an exception for Mattis. One of those scholars, Eliot Cohen, a noted author and professor, former State Department official, and, during the presidential campaign, an instigator of the “Never Trump” movement launched by conservative national-security specialists, said at this earlier hearing that Mattis “would be a stabilizing and moderating force, preventing wildly stupid, dangerous, or illegal things from happening.”

Considering what David Ignatius reveals in his post this morning regarding Flynn, Mattis might be the right guy for the job. Ignatius wonders what the Trump team’s connections with Russia might mean for future relations:

According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

If the Trump team’s contacts helped discourage the Russians from a counter-retaliation, maybe that’s a good thing. But we ought to know the facts.

Uh, yeah.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren might have been wondering about that too. John Cassidy writes at the New Yorker that Warren asked Mattis if he believed in offering frank advice and if that belief extended to the President’s other national-security advisers:

“Absolutely, Senator,” he said, in response to Warren’s question. “And I would not have taken this nomination if I didn’t have this belief.”

“Good,” Warren said. “And what about the President himself? Under what circumstances will you advocate for your views forcefully and frankly?”

“On every circumstance, Senator,” Mattis said, slowly and deliberately.

Trump has named so many generals to his team I had to look up the collective noun: a glitter of generals. With Flynn as national security advisor and Mattis as as secretary of defense, it seems what the Senate is hoping for instead is a clash of generals.

20, 30 million tops. Depending on the breaks.

by digby

No, I’m not talking about nuclear war this time even though I’m quoting Strangelove. I’m talking about the Obamacare repeal obsession.

Here’s the latest from the Huffington Post:

House Republicans have successfully voted to repeal parts of Obamacare ― or the entire thing ― more than 60 times in the last six years. But now that lawmakers could actually be making law, there’s sudden apprehension in parts of the GOP conference.

Republicans generally agree they want the 2010 health care law gone. It’s just that many disagree over what they should replace it with.

Now conservatives and some GOP moderates, concerned that Republicans don’t have a clear plan on how they’ll move forward with an Obamacare alternative, could team up later this week to take down the first real vote in the House to set up a repeal of the law.

Even if lawmakers do, as expected, get behind this vote setting up an Obamacare repeal on Friday, there are already signs that some Republicans may eventually withhold support on a final repeal vote until GOP leadership releases details of an alternative.

Those concerns would be moot in President-elect Donald Trump’s version of the Obamacare repeal and replace, where those actions would happen “essentially simultaneously.” (“Most likely be on the same day or the same week, but probably the same day ― could be the same hour,” Trump said Wednesday, evidently believing in an alternate universe where Congress works like that.)

Here in the real world, where Senate action on any bill generally takes a week and an Obamacare replacement could take months or even years, GOP leaders are trying to convince members to trust that Republicans will be able to come up with something that won’t come back to haunt them. Some members, however, are reluctant to take that leap of faith.

A last-minute whip operation from Freedom Caucus hard-liners has raised new questions about the first vote on Friday. The budget resolution, acting as a vehicle for an Obamacare repeal, advanced out of the Senate early Thursday morning and is supposed to get a vote in the House on Friday.

After the evening votes, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) met with Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), the co-chairman of the moderate GOP Tuesday Group, who said this week that he has “reservations” about voting for a repeal. According to Meadows, he and Dent discussed how many moderates might vote against the resolution to set up a fast-track for an Obamacare repeal.

The so-called “moderates” are just standard right wingers who aren’t quite as crazy as the Freedom Caucus and Donald Trump. They recognize that throwing 20 million people to the curb might not end up being so popular and they think they should take the time to think the whole thing through. (Of course, they’ve been voting to repeal Obamacare for five years and never managed to come up with an alternative so that says something about the possibilities.)

And they aren’t the only ones with issues:

Jordan was taking the temperature of conservatives, and there look to be more than a few far-right Republicans who will vote no ― either out of concern over the resolution deeming the addition of more than $9 trillion in new debt as “appropriate” or because leadership has offered few details about a replacement.

Jordan noted that some Republicans are pushing to keep the Obamacare taxes in place. Others are pushing for a longer delay to the date of enactment. And still others are trying to keep Planned Parenthood funding in the health care law. These are all ideas that are anathema to conservatives.

“There are some of our Freedom Caucus guys who are willing to say, ‘Let’s give them a chance to bring something conservative in a replacement,’” Meadows said. “There are some who say, ‘We know what’s coming.’”
[…]
Even if the vote on Friday goes smoothly, this would just be the first in a series of votes to repeal and replace Obamacare. In some ways, this should be the easiest vote. Republicans are merely setting up the process to begin a repeal. But as they grapple with more details about a replacement, and as leadership tries to push a repeal through before Republicans ever start debating a replacement ― or even hold a hearing on the impact of getting rid of Obamacare ― a once-easy messaging vote might prove more difficult than leaders have let on.

This is a very messy fight. And while there’s no doubt they truly want to do it, they do not have any idea how to tell the 20 million people who will lose their health insurance that they’re out of luck. And now they have Trump breathing down their necks telling them they have to come up with a replacement plan that’s better and cheaper and will make American great again at the same time as the repeal or he’s going to be P.O’d.

If he had a clue about anything he’d know it’s impossible but he doesn’t as has no intention of learning. He considers it their job to make his promises, no matter how stupid, a reality. And he wants it done NOW, goddamit.

Lay in a supply of your favorite alcoholic libation because you’re going to need it.

by digby

It’s so sweet:

In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. 

The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches. 

The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people. 

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate “raw signals intelligence information,” on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures. 

Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information. 

Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions. 

“This is not expanding the substantive ability of law enforcement to get access to signals intelligence,” said Robert S. Litt, the general counsel to Mr. Clapper. “It is simply widening the aperture for a larger number of analysts, who will be bound by the existing rules.” 

But Patrick Toomey, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the move an erosion of rules intended to protect the privacy of Americans when their messages are caught by the N.S.A.’s powerful global collection methods. He noted that domestic internet data was often routed or stored abroad, where it may get vacuumed up without court oversight. 

“Rather than dramatically expanding government access to so much personal data, we need much stronger rules to protect the privacy of Americans,” Mr. Toomey said. “Seventeen different government agencies shouldn’t be rooting through Americans’ emails with family members, friends and colleagues, all without ever obtaining a warrant.”
The N.S.A. has been required to apply similar privacy protections to foreigners’ information since early 2014, an unprecedented step that President Obama took after the disclosures of N.S.A. documents by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden. The other intelligence agencies will now have to follow those rules, too. 

Under the new system, agencies will ask the N.S.A. for access to specific surveillance feeds, making the case that they contain information relevant and useful to their missions. The N.S.A. will grant requests it deems reasonable after considering factors like whether large amounts of Americans’ private information might be included and, if so, how damaging or embarrassing it would be if that information were “improperly used or disclosed.”

What could go wrong?

I assume this was in the works for some time and would have happened regardless of which party took over. And it’s equally bad regardless. Giving even more people the ammunition to go after their enemies by searching through their private correspondence and delivering suspicious info to law enforcement or embarrassing info to the press just doesn’t seem like a good idea right now.

But perhaps the silver lining of Trump going to war with the IC is the fact that they are less likely to do his bidding when he wants to go after his political enemies as you know he will. It’s a small consolation considering that he’s a malevolent monster who is probably going to get us into a war.

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An investigation into Comey. Finally.

by digby

So, this happened:

The Justice Department inspector general’s office said on Thursday it would open an investigation into the decision in October by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, to inform Congress about a new review in the Hillary Clinton email investigation — a move Mrs. Clinton has said cost her the election.

The inquiry is not a blow for Mr. Comey only. It also draws negative attention again to the F.B.I. on an issue that agents had hoped was behind them.

The inspector general’s office said the investigation had come in response to complaints from members of Congress and the public about actions by the F.B.I. and the Justice Department during the campaign that might be seen as politically motivated.

Chief among those actions was the decision by Mr. Comey to write two letters on the email matter within 11 days of the election, creating a wave of damaging news stories about the controversy late in the campaign. In the end, the new emails that the F.B.I. reviewed — which came up during an unrelated inquiry into Anthony D. Weiner, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin — proved irrelevant.

Graphic | These Are the Bad (and Worse) Options James Comey Faced When federal officials concluded their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had a decision to make on how to announce that news. The choices he made in July set the F.B.I. on the path toward the predicament it faces today.
But the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said he would also be examining other issues, including whether the deputy director of the F.B.I., whose wife ran as a Democrat for the Virginia State Senate, should have recused himself from any involvement in the Clinton email investigation. Another issue is whether a top Justice Department official gave information to the Clinton campaign.

The ramifications of the investigation were not immediately clear. Mr. Horowitz has the authority to recommend a criminal investigation if he finds evidence of illegality, but there has been no suggestion that Mr. Comey’s actions were unlawful. Rather, the question has been whether he acted inappropriately, showed bad judgment or violated Justice Department guidelines.

The Justice Department and the F.B.I. have a longstanding policy against discussing criminal investigations. Another Justice Department policy declares that politics should play no role in investigative decisions. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have interpreted that policy broadly to prohibit taking any steps that might even hint at an impression of partisanship.

It is extraordinarily rare for the inspector general to publicly disclose its investigations, particularly in such detail. That means that the inspector general has now broken with policy and announced details of an investigation into whether Mr. Comey broke with policy and announced details of an investigation.

Mr. Comey’s actions attracted criticism from members of both parties. Some criticized him for releasing the letter at the height of the campaign. Donald J. Trump, on the other hand, accused him of being part of a rigged system because the F.B.I. cleared Mrs. Clinton of criminal liability.

Maybe the IG will decide that Comey erred in failing to indict Clinton for all we know.That’s just the weird situation we’re in. The whole thing is very scary.

The FBI interfering in the election is arguably much worse than all this brouhaha about Russian hacking and propaganda. That’s not especially unusual except to the extent they seem to have preferred a particular candidate (just don’t call him a puppet.) New technology and tactics make this one particularly effective, but that’s a different problem. The FBI putting its thumb on the scale, however, is not common, at least in recent times, and the fact that everyone just blithely accepted it is very worrying.

The Times article says it might give Trump an excuse to fire Comey. Needless to say, he’s unlikely to do that considering what Comey did for him. On the other hand, if Comey gets too frisky about this Russian stuff, he might just pull that trigger.

What a mess. What a terrible terrible mess.

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QOTD: Dr Ben

by digby

In his confirmation hearings this morning he made a solemn promise:

“It will not be my intention to do anything that will benefit any American” — Ben Carson

I think he means it.

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A little tough talk for troubled times

by digby

Deadspin:

Ethical guidelines exist for a reason. Norms exist for a reason.

The reason is not “Jerks who think they’re smarter than us trying to control our lives from on high.” The reason is that human history is long, and all of the mistakes that could possibly be made have been made, and at a certain point people figured out that following some common sense rules could prevent us from making the same dire mistakes over and over again. Mistakes that come from human nature. Mistakes like: allowing powerful people to use their powerful positions to make money for themselves, or allowing powerful people to use their powerful positions to squelch legitimate dissent, or allowing powerful people to use their powerful positions to flout the very ethical guidelines and norms that prior people in powerful positions established to keep people in powerful positions in check.

Today we saw a “press conference” by our incoming president at which he put forth a farcical plan to allow his own sons to continue running his vast business empire while he is president, and spoke at length about his belief that as president it is impossible for him to have meaningful conflicts of interest, which is why he felt comfortable presenting his decision to turn down a $2 billion business deal with a Middle Eastern real estate mogul as something noble, rather than as an obvious decision that would be made as a matter of course under a normal presidential administration. He dismissed serious reporting that reflected poorly on him as “fake news,” and promised to retaliate against news outlets that displeased him. These things are not normal. These things are not okay. These are actions that flout well-established ethical and civil norms. Admittedly, there is something thrilling about watching him do this. What will he do next? It always keeps us tuning in, in the same way that a violent alcoholic father will always keep his children on his toes. But we should not fool ourselves about what is happening in front of our eyes. We are all coming to realize that our civil society institutions may not be strong enough to protect the flawed but fundamentally solid democracy that we thought we had. We are witnessing the rise to power of a leader who does not care about norms. Since these norms were created to prevent political, social, economic, and cultural disasters, we do not need to wonder how this will end. It will end poorly.

This is why you don’t kiss the ring of Donald Trump. This is why you don’t visit him in his golden tower and sit stiffly in a spacious conference room to hear his nonsensical thoughts about “innovation.” This is why you don’t tousle his hair playfully on late night television, or allow him to hold off-the-record meetings with your news organization. This is why you don’t pose in smiling pictures with him, or defer to him out of some misplaced sense of decorum or respect for the office he is soon to occupy. This is why there was so much fear over the “normalization” of what he is and what he represents. Our society and our institutions are simply not set up to deal with someone who is fully prepared to flout all of our norms of good behavior. Our system, to a large degree, relies on social sanction rather than laws to prevent powerful people from getting too far out of line. When our most powerful person is willing to ignore all of that, there is not much in place to stop him. The normalization process is well underway. The pomp and circumstance and deference will only increase after the inauguration. The press and the Congress are the only two institutions standing between a dangerous man and total power. They must both realize this is not the time to salute and grovel. This is not the time to fall into familiar patterns of default respect for someone who does not himself respect the responsibility to the public that he has been given. This is the time for them to rise to the occasion. And the occasion is a fight for civil society.

This is not going to be a free and fair exchange of ideas. This is going to be a fight. If you have not absorbed that fact yet, you are already losing.

This is only going to get worse.

They are right. And that comes from a group who was targeted by one of Trump’s most fervent billionaire supporters, Peter Theil, which ended up destroying the company.

Rex Tillerson rattles Trump’s saber

by digby

I wrote about him for Salon this morning:

On Wednesday morning Donald Trump held his first press conference since July. It was immediately clear this was not going to be the day he executed the long-awaited pivot to presidential behavior. It was a crazy event held in the lobby of Trump Tower, featuring cheering Trump Organization staffers in the crowd treating it like a Trump Victory rally.

The president-elect announced that he was not going to divest assets from his business and explained that because he is a “germophobe” he could not possibly be the subject of blackmail — or at least not on the basis of the allegations in Tuesday’s bombshell report. And that was before he started screaming at reporters.

Trump never answered the direct question about whether anyone associated with his campaign had been in contact with representatives of the Russian government, but he did admit for the first time that Russia apparently hacked his opponent’s presidential campaign. He thinks it was worth it. He said, “If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability,” apparently perceiving the Russian president as just another enthusiastic Trump voter who wants to make America great again.

After watching that astonishing display, it was a relief to turn to Secretary of State-nominee Rex Tillerson’s confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill. At least that wouldn’t make you contemplate running out and buying survivalist gear, right? Well, that depends.

Your first impression of the man explains why Trump cast him in the role. (And yes, he did “cast” him.) With his craggy face and silvery mane swept back off his forehead, Tillerson looks like he should be etched on money. When he opens his mouth and speaks in that familiar Texas drawl, you feel like you’ve been hurled back in time to an era when Republicans were led by people like James Baker and Phil Gramm and, yes, George W. Bush (which brings on its own set of misgivings).

Tillerson is a smooth operator, but he nonetheless had a surprisingly bumpy ride. He was questioned sharply about whether he planned to release his tax returns. He said he would give the committee some financial information but did not plan to reveal his returns despite his very recent departure as CEO of ExxonMobil. Indeed, why should he? The president-elect himself, his new boss, refuses to release his and isn’t divesting his holdings because, according to his lawyer, “selling his assets without the rights to the brand would greatly diminish the value of the assets.” If the president can get away with maintaining ownership in an international business because he’d lose money if he sold it, what’s the problem with a multimillion-dollar golden parachute from ExxonMobil?

Sen. Tim Kaine, who very nearly became vice president, got under Tillerson’s skin by asking him about the longstanding accusations that ExxonMobil funded and disseminated climate-denial propaganda for years with the intention of misleading he public. The former CEO bobbed and weaved, prompting Kaine to ask, “Do you lack the knowledge to answer my question or are you refusing to answer my question?” To which Tillerson tartly replied, “A little of both.”

The good news is that Tillerson didn’t call climate change a Chinese hoax, as his new boss has done. He even suggested that the U.S. might not pull out of the Paris accords since it’s important to have a seat at the table. Which was mighty big of him considering that the U.S. emits the second-highest level of greenhouse gases on the planet.

Tillerson received an unexpected grilling from Sen. Marco Rubio, a onetime Trump foe, on the issue of sanctions against Russia and whether he would characterize Vladimir Putin as a war criminal. Tillerson danced around the first issue and said no to the second. It seemed a bit much to ask a man applying to be the nation’s top diplomat to call the Russian president a war criminal, so that’s fair enough. But it’s clear that the issue of sanctions is a dicey one for both Trump and Tillerson.

There have been questions about why Trump campaign changing the GOP platform’s position on Russian sanctions during the Republican convention. And Tillerson’s answers on whether ExxonMobil lobbied against the sanctions seem to have been downright deceptive. He claimed the company didn’t do it, and then said it had just offered information, a charge refuted by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. When Tillerson said he personally hadn’t lobbied anyone, even friendly Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., piped up to remind him that he’d in fact called Corker about the issue.

The reason for all the questioning, of course, is that Tillerson had just made the deal of his life for ExxonMobil to drill in the Russian Arctic when sanctions were inconveniently imposed after Russia annexed Crimea. The question leads back to Tillerson’s remaining financial interests in the company, which might reveal a personal stake with respect to the lifting of those sanctions. But again, this is the ethics-free Trump administration and Tillerson’s potential conflicts seem as quaint as a nominee being rejected for failing to pay her nanny’s Social Security tax (as happened under the Clinton administration). So it’s unlikely to derail him.

Tillerson did make some news in the hearing at the end of the day when he blithely endorsed one of Trump’s most fatuous campaign lines. He said the building of islands in the South China Sea is “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea,” which is ridiculous and will likely upset Beijing all over again. Sounding like his bombastic new boss, Tillerson added, “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that first the island-building stops and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.” No word on what comes next but I think we get the picture.

There’s your WWIII trigger: US Naval blockade of valueless islands, which aren’t recognized by the US as belonging to anyone. https://t.co/xAQR6XMUxH

— Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) January 12, 2017

While everyone seemed to believe that Trump was only talking about trade deals when he railed against China during the campaign, he also constantly brought up these islands as if they were a deliberate provocation against the U.S. Tillerson seemed all too eager to sign on to that proposition. On the other hand, he said he’s a proponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, opposition to which was supposedly central to Trump’s appeal to his white working-class supporters. I always wondered if they were actually more attracted to the old-fashioned saber-rattling. Looks like we might be about to find out.

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Trump dossier: Crooks and daggers
by Tom Sullivan

The BBC this morning offers more details about the dossier alleging connections between President-elect Donald Trump and the Russian government. First, its author: ex-MI6 officer Christopher Steele. The BBC reports Steele left his home this week and is now in hiding.

The Telegraph summarizes how we got here:

The existence of the dossier, which ran to 35 pages in total, comprising several reports filed over the course of six months, had been common knowledge among journalists in the US for more than half a year, but it was only given credence when the US news network CNN reported that Mr Trump and President Barack Obama had been given a two-page summary of its contents by the FBI.

BBC news correspondent Paul Wood reports that “a joint taskforce, which includes the CIA and the FBI, has been investigating allegations that the Russians may have sent money to Mr Trump’s organisation or his election campaign.” Wood reveals more about the material Russian agents compiled on Donald Trump and his business dealings:

And the former MI6 agent is not the only source for the claim about Russian kompromat on the president-elect. Back in August, a retired spy told me he had been informed of its existence by “the head of an East European intelligence agency”.

Later, I used an intermediary to pass some questions to active duty CIA officers dealing with the case file – they would not speak to me directly. I got a message back that there was “more than one tape”, “audio and video”, on “more than one date”, in “more than one place” – in the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow and also in St Petersburg – and that the material was “of a sexual nature”.

Wood cautions, “Mr Trump and his supporters are right to point out that these are unsubstantiated allegations.”

When questioned on details in this story, “a senior member of the US intelligence community” would only confirm or deny what Wood had already put together. The task force Wood describes includes “six agencies or departments” looking for transfers from two Russian banks to the United States. Justice Department attorneys obtained a warrant from the FISA court on October 15, Wood claims. What became of that investigation Wood does not know. But the tapes?

If a tape exists, the Russians would hardly give it up, though some hope to encourage a disloyal FSB officer who might want to make some serious money. Before the election, Larry Flynt, publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, put up a million dollars for incriminating tape of Mr Trump. Penthouse has now followed with its own offer of a million dollars for the Ritz-Carlton tape (if it exists).

Trumpsters wanted a reality-show president. They got one.

Both in a tweet and at his press event yesterday, Trump blamed the intelligence services he will soon control for leaking the dossier members of the press have had for months.

The Guardian reports:

Intelligence veterans reacted with shock to the renewed and intensified attack, with one saying Trump had exhibited “open, irrational and hysterical hostility” to the community on the eve of Thursday’s confirmation hearing for Trump’s nominee for CIA director, Mike Pompeo. Another suggested conscientious intelligence officials may have to contemplate resignation.

The intelligence agencies neither compiled nor leaked the unverified dossier. It and several of the claims it contained have circulated for months within newsrooms, including the Guardian’s, which resisted their publication until adequate verification could be unearthed.

A week ahead of his inauguration, Trump is still entangled in a self-made web of conflicts of interest – his plan for separating himself from them is a subject of ridicule. At his press event yesterday, Trump displayed a stack of folders allegedly containing documents signed to separate him from his business interests. Yet his staff refused reporters’ requests to examine them.

Update: The Trump team did not allow the press to see the contents of the folders. Photo by Noah Gray/CNN pic.twitter.com/zKc9fv3Sba— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) January 11, 2017

It was a scene reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s speech delivered beside a table stacked with binders of edited “Watergate” tape transcripts, and even less transparent. I’m not a crook. See?

On Women: Three Views

By Dennis Hartley

Michelle…Michelle LaVaughn Robinson of the South Side…for the past 25 years you have not only been my wife and mother of my children, you have been my best friend. You took on a role you didn’t ask for. And you made it your own with grace and with grit and with style, and good humor. You made the White House a place that belongs to everybody. And a new generation sets its sights higher because it has you as a role model. You have made me proud, and you have made the country proud.

Malia and Sasha…under the strangest of circumstances you have become two amazing young women. You are smart and you are beautiful. But more importantly, you are kind and you are thoughtful and you are full of passion. … you wore the burden of years in the spotlight so easily. Of all that I have done in my life, I am most proud to be your dad.

–President Obama, from his farewell address, January 10, 2017

And to all the women, and especially the young women, who put their faith in this campaign and in me, I want you to know that nothing has made me prouder than to be your champion.

And — and to all the little girls who are watching this, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.

–Hillary Clinton, from her concession speech, November 9, 2016

Trump: Yeah, that’s her, with the gold. I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

Trump: Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.

–President-elect Trump, from the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tapes.

C’mon, everybody! You know the words…

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Never call him subtle

by digby

I’m not sure that comparing the intelligence community to Nazi Germany is such a smart thing for a president with mysterious personal finances is wise. But that’s just me …

For the record, the intelligence agencies didn’t leak this. It’s been in the hands of the media for months, apparently. They just decided to eport on it because they found out that the intel bosses had briefed the president and Trump himself on it last Friday.

Now, knowing that, think about the media’s treatment of Trump during the campaign knowing that they were aware of these rumors and probably snickering like schoolgirls over it.

And then recall their handwringing over Hillary Clinton failing to properly tell them the full details of her doctor’s visits.

Yeah.

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