The Political Thread

“Tequila, why are you wearing a Medical Face Mask?’

T- “Donald!!!”

“What does Donald have to do with you wearing a Medical Mask?”

T--“Like an Airborne Virus…”

I thought about Tequila’s last comment and she is right…

Donald is like an Airborne Virus affecting ALL, not only in America, but ALL Globally. He is not just an Epidemic, but a Pandemic.

DONALD ARTICLES AND RELATED ARTICLES (PLEASE WEAR A MEDICAL FACE-MASK):

--12-17-18: www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/probe-trump-s-charity-could-crash-mack-truck-his-real-n950576  
The Trump Foundation and the Trump Organization shared much more than President Donald Trump's last name.

And that's why, experts said, the New York state investigations into the charity could envelop the president's namesake business.

"Nothing but overlap here. It all was held so tightly by he and his family members," NBC News/MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor, told NBC News.

"I don't think there will be any investigative daylight between what the New York state authorities and investigators are looking into with respect to the foundation vs. the organization vs. anything else involving business dealings that have the name 'Trump' attached to them," he said, predicting that the foundation investigation will "crash through (the Trump Organization) like a Mack Truck." READ MORE…

--12-25-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-warns-of-us-war-over-fatal-misunderstanding/ar-BBRp83T?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
Moscow's top diplomat has argued that Russia was doing its best to avoid a conflict with the United States, but that both countries appeared to be on a dangerous collision course due to a lack of communication.

Asked Monday about the possibility of all-out war breaking out between the U.S.-led NATO Western military alliance and Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the state-run Sputnik News that "everyone in the world understands this well:

An armed conflict involving the two leading nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, will have disastrous consequences for humanity."

Echoing previous warnings about the prospects of an exchange of weapons of mass destruction, he said that "there is no doubt that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and it should never be unleashed."

Lavrov said that Washington and its allies were "obsessed with their own geopolitical ambitions" and "not ready to adapt to global realities that are not changing in their favor."

As a result, he said that dialogue had been frozen and international agreements such as the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty were in danger of being scrapped, creating an even more dangerous equation.

"Such a conflict, based on instruments of power inevitably leads to a further imbalance of the global security architecture and contributes to an arms race," Lavrov told Sputnik. "A situation may well arise when the price of an error or misunderstanding becomes fatal."

Ties between the West and Russia have deteriorated since Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula in a 2014 referendum that has received limited international recognition amid ongoing political unrest in Ukraine.

Allegations that the Russian military has aided separatists battling Ukrainian forces in the east further compelled NATO to bolster its borders with more international troops and defenses, leading Moscow to shore up its own positions.

The precarious situation in Europe was exacerbated by allegations that the Kremlin attempted to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of then-Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Though Trump promised a reset in relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Washington has expanded sanctions against Russia throughout the current administration, and the White House has announced its intention to end the INF treaty, a 1987 agreement banning the deployment of land-based launchers with ranges from 310 to 3,400 miles.

Putin said Tuesday that Russia "will be forced to take additional measures to strengthen our security" should Washington leave the INF treaty and his spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday that "Russia will have to target" any U.S. missiles aimed at it in Europe.

Meanwhile, Lavrov also expressed concern that the State Department has apparently not responded to attempts to negotiate a renewal of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which sets limits for both countries' nuclear arsenals and will expire in 2021. The U.S. contends that Russia is in violation of its Cold War-era obligations. READ MORE…

--01-01-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-the-senior-people-who-left-the-white-house-in-2018-had-to-say-about-trump/ar-BBREPJD?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
To hear President Trump tell it, his administration is, at any given moment, nearly ideal in its composition and capabilities.

It is, as he tweeted in September, a “smooth running machine” — never mind that, before the tweet, 15 senior White House and administration officials had quit or been fired and that, in the months since, another eight have joined them. (Since definitions of “senior” can vary, we’re using those officials identified in The Washington Post’s timeline of high-profile departures from the White House.)

What makes those departures particularly tricky isn’t just that those who left undercut the idea that the administration hasn’t hit any speed bumps.

It’s also that, in at least a third of the cases, those who departed have offered words of disagreement with or criticism of Trump or his administration.

Below is a review of those who left, the conditions under which they did and what they’ve said about the White House since.

Brenda Fitzgerald, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who quit Jan. 31.

Criticisms: None.

Rob Porter, staff secretary who was fired Feb. 7.

Criticisms: In Bob Woodward’s book “Fear,” Porter is quoted as saying that “ third of my job was trying to react to some of the really dangerous ideas that he had and try to give him reasons to believe that maybe they weren’t such good ideas.”

Hope Hicks, communications director who quit Feb. 28.

Criticisms: None. Hicks works at Fox.

Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council who quit March 6.

Criticisms: Cohn is also quoted in “Fear.”

“It’s not what we did for the country,” he reportedly said. “It’s what we saved him from doing.” In another anecdote, Cohn is described as removing a document from Trump’s desk to prevent the president from signing it.

Rex Tillerson, secretary of state who was fired March 13.

Criticisms: It was challenging to “go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn’t like to read, doesn’t read briefing reports, doesn’t like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, ‘This is what I believe,’ ”

Tillerson said in an interview. He also said Trump would need to be told when proposed actions were potentially illegal.

Andrew McCabe, deputy FBI director who was fired March 16.

Criticisms: McCabe called Trump’s attacks on him personally “unhinged.” Working at the FBI, he said, “is the best job you will ever have, even if a president decides to attack you and your family.”

H.R. McMaster, national security adviser who was fired March 22.

Criticisms: Before leaving the White House, McMaster was reported to have said Trump was a “dope” who was no smarter than a kindergartner.

David Shulkin, secretary of Veterans Affairs who was fired March 28.

Criticisms: Shulkin claims he butted heads with advocates for VA privatization who “saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed.”

Tom Bossert, homeland security adviser who was fired April 10.

Criticisms: None. He is employed by ABC News. It’s not clear whether he signed a nondisclosure agreement when joining the White House.

Nadia Schadlow, deputy national security adviser who quit April 11.

Criticisms: None. In a lengthy interview with CBS, Schadlow was complimentary about Trump’s involvement in the security team’s processes.

Ty Cobb, White House lawyer who quit May 2.

Criticisms: “Bob Mueller is an American hero in my view,” Cobb said in an interview in October. “I don’t believe this is a witch hunt.”

Joe Hagin, deputy chief of staff who quit June 19.

Criticisms: None.

Scott Pruitt, Environmental Protection Agency administrator who quit July 5.

Criticisms: None. Pruitt’s departure followed a remarkable string of questions about his behavior at the EPA.

Marc Short, legislative affairs director who quit July 12.

Criticisms: None. Short is a CNN contributor. After signing a nondisclosure agreement while working with the campaign, he says he did not sign one at the White House. (The campaign nondisclosure agreement was expansive in its terms.)

Donald McGahn, counsel who quit Aug. 29.

Criticisms: People close to McGahn told CNN that, in his last meeting with Trump, the president blamed him for the Mueller appointment.

Criticisms: None.

Nikki Haley, U.N. ambassador who quit Oct. 9.

Criticisms: Haley described to NBC News how she leveraged Trump’s personality: “I got the job done by being truthful but also by letting him be unpredictable and not showing our cards.”

Jeff Sessions, attorney general who was fired Nov. 7.

Criticisms: None. Despite ongoing criticism from Trump that ultimately led to his ouster, Sessions told an audience in November that he “enjoy[ed] the honor and appreciate[d] the president allowing me to serve almost two years in one of the greatest jobs in the world.”

Mira Ricardel, deputy national security adviser who was fired Nov. 14.

Criticisms: None.

John F. Kelly, chief of staff who was fired Dec. 8.

Criticisms: Working as chief of staff was a “bone-crushing hard job,” Kelly said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. Trump never asked him to do anything illegal “because we wouldn’t have.”

Nick Ayers, vice president’s chief of staff who quit Dec. 9.

Criticisms: None. Ayers did, however, decline a job that Trump had made very clear he hoped Ayers would accept.

Ryan Zinke, secretary of the Interior who quit Dec. 15.

Criticisms: None.

Jim Mattis, secretary of defense who quit Dec. 20.

Criticisms: “[O]ur strength as a nation is inextricably linked to the strength of our unique and comprehensive system of alliances and partnerships,” Mattis wrote in his resignation letter.

“My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competitors are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues,” he added, remarking that he was leaving because Trump had “the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects.”

--12-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-threatens-to-close-southern-border-entirely/ar-BBRwLvS?ocid=U147DHP

 SHOWS HOW CRAZY/INCOMPETENT DONALD AND SOME OF THE GOP ARE…
President Donald Trump has threatened to close the border with Mexico as his impasse with the Democrats over funding of his much vaunted wall deepens.

In a series of tweets on Friday morning, Trump took aim at the Democrats for hampering his wall plan in their refusal to back his request for $5 billion for border security, which has led to a partial government shutdown.

He tweeted: “We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress and President who would approve!”

He lambasted the free trade deal NAFTA, saying that under its rules, the U.S. “looses sooo much money,” asserting the amount is "over $75 billion. “I would consider closing the Southern Border a “profit making operation,” he added.

Without explaining how, he then went on to say in a third tweet in quick succession that the car industry should be brought back to the U.S. “where it belongs.”

“Go back to pre-NAFTA, before so many of our companies and jobs were so foolishly sent to Mexico. Either we build (finish) the Wall or we close the Border,” Trump said in a tweet which appeared to link his view of the shortcomings of the North American trade deal with immigration.

Trump is looking at whether to cancel the 25-year-old trade agreement in favor of a revised trade deal.

Marc Short, former White House director of legislative affairs told the Washington Examiner there was a “high probability” that Trump would withdraw the U.S. from NAFTA before the recently signed U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) reaches Congress to be ratified.

Meanwhile, the partial shutdown which went into effect on December 21 is expected to continue until the New Year after both chambers of Congress adjourned on Thursday without resolving the closure.

Trump insists the shutdown will continue until he gets $5 billion for a border wall that the Democrats say would be an ineffective solution to a problem Trump exaggerates.

On Thursday, Trump ally and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham claimed the proposed wall would form part of the U.S. defense against terrorism and part of a global strategy against “radical Islam.”

Without any evidence, he wrote on Twitter how the fortifications would be America’s “last line of defense” against radical Islamists.

--12-25-18: www.msn.com/en-us/money/taxes/the-tax-law-is-1-year-old-here-are-the-winners-and-losers/ar-BBRhLwc?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=U147DHP  
President Donald Trump made some bold promises last year when he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law on Dec. 22, 2017.
Among the boldest -- that middle-class workers would see a pay increase of $4,000 to $9,000 and that the richest Americans wouldn't gain "at all" under the plan.

By those measures, the tax reform package has fallen short, some experts say. Wage growth remains modest, and most middle-class taxpayers have seen only a middling financial boost from lower tax rates, which declined by about 1 percent to 4 percent.

Meanwhile, the biggest benefits went to the rich and "increased the inequality of income," wrote William G. Gale, the co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, this week in an article for the Brookings Institution.

He also said the tax cuts are unlikely to boost long-term growth and could mire the economy in debt.

As the tax law turns one, here's a look at the biggest winners and losers from the landmark measure.

Winner: Corporations

Thanks to a major cut in their tax rate, corporations are now taxed at a 21 percent rate instead of 35 percent. The reduction was framed as a way to allow companies to keep more profits, which they would then spend on hiking wages -- leading to that promised $4,000 to $9,000 raise.

But corporations are diverting much of those proceeds to investors, not workers.

Only 6 percent of tax cut-related savings have gone to workers, according to Just Capital, a nonprofit advocacy group.

By contrast, about 56 percent of those savings have been funneled to investors in the form of buybacks and dividends.

Through mid-December, U.S. companies spent a record $1 trillion this year on buying back their own stock, which props up their value.

Winner: The rich

The rich are getting richer thanks to the tax bill -- and even faster than before.

The top 20 percent of earners around the country have seen a nearly 3 percent gain in after-tax income since the tax cuts were passed a year ago, according to the Tax Policy Center. That means a typical household in that group, which has annual income of roughly $348,000, will enjoy a boost of about $10,000.

Meanwhile, income for the lowest 20 percent of earners rose only 0.4 percent after the tax bill -- that amounts to a benefit of $56.

After-tax income for middle-class Americans -- those in the middle 60 percent -- increased between 1.2 and 1.9 percent this year.

Winner: Some small businesses and freelancers

Some small businesses and freelancers are benefiting from the tax law's more favorable treatment of "pass-through" entities, such as sole proprietorships and partnerships.

The act let them deduct 20 percent of their earnings from taxable income. That means a freelancer earning $100,000 will only pay taxes on $80,000 of that income, effectively allowing them to enjoy $20,000 in income tax-free.

There are some limitations. Taxpayers who earn more than $157,500 for single filers or $315,000 for joint filers may not qualify for the pass-through deduction, for example.

Losers: Taxpayers in high-tax states

In some cases, taxpayers will end up owing more next April, especially those who live in high-tax states. That's because the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) caps the state and local tax (SALT) deduction at $10,000.

Residents of New York State, where income and property taxes tend to be high, will pay an additional $14.3 billion in taxes in 2018, New York State attorney general Barbara D. Underwood said earlier this year.

The IRS warned this week that some taxpayers who expected refunds may actually end up owing due to the new tax law. That includes people who live in high-tax states.

Losers: Future taxpayers

Although the tax cuts put more money in people's pockets, one day they will have to be paid for -- and the tab is mammoth.

The law is project to increase the U.S. deficit by $1.9 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

"It is unclear how TCJA will eventually be financed, but in the most likely scenarios, most households will end up worse off than had the TCJA never passed," Gale wrote.

"In short, TCJA likely made the current generation of high-income households better off at the expense of lower-income households and future generations.

--12-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/majority-in-poll-want-trump-impeached-or-censured/ar-BBRxeHW?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. voters say President Trump should be either impeached and removed from office or formally censured according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill.

The poll shows that a majority of votes think some kind of action should be taken against Trump, though they are divided on how far lawmakers should go as Democrats prepare to take over the House majority. READ MORE…

--12-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/john-kelly-paints-yet-another-dim-portrait-of-trump/ar-BBRBh9k?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
A few months ago, a senior Trump administration official wrote a controversial anonymous op-ed in the New York Times that said forces within the administration were working to rein in President Trump’s potentially damaging whims.

And in a recent interview, Trump’s departing chief of staff basically confirms it.

The Los Angeles Times interview with John F. Kelly published Sunday says:

In the phone interview Friday, Kelly defended his rocky tenure, arguing that it is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly was at his side.

And it doesn’t get much better from there.

Kelly admits he wasn’t consulted much before Trump banned travel from several majority-Muslim nations. At the time, Kelly was the secretary of homeland security — the department in charge of instituting the ban. Chaos ensued.

“I had very little opportunity to look at” the orders before they were issued, Kelly said. “Obviously, it brought down a greater deal of thunder on the president.”

Kelly suggested he and others also stopped Trump from withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan. (A partial pullout from Afghanistan now appears likely, however, after a decision by the president this month, though senior U.S. military officers have said they have received no orders.)

“When I first took over, he was inclined to want to withdraw from Afghanistan,” Kelly said, adding: “He was frustrated. It was a huge decision to make . . . and frankly there was no system at all for a lot of reasons — palace intrigue and the rest of it — when I got there.”

Kelly defended those serving Trump as delivering him the right information, even if it might be disregarded.

“It’s never been: The president just wants to make a decision based on no knowledge and ignorance,” Kelly said. “You may not like his decision, but at least he was fully informed on the impact.”

This is pretty much the opposite of a ringing endorsement of Trump’s decisions; it’s a person who was involved in those decisions covering his backside and basically saying, “We tried to tell him!”

Kelly also distanced himself from the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border, blaming then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for a zero-tolerance border policy that resulted in the separations — a policy now marked by the death of two children who were in U.S. custody.

“What happened was Jeff Sessions — he was the one that instituted the zero-tolerance process on the border that resulted in both people being detained and the family separation,” Kelly said. “He surprised us.”

It wasn’t clear whether Kelly meant that the policy itself was bad, or that it was just poorly and hastily implemented (which an inspector general has said it was).

It’s worth noting that Kelly himself floated just such a policy in a 2017 interview with CNN. He also defended it as chief of staff, while emphasizing he hoped it would only be temporary.

And finally, Kelly again suggested Trump’s border wall demands were less-than-serious. “To be honest, it’s not a wall,” he said, noting the barriers were only part of the proposal.

Previously, Kelly drew Trump’s ire by telling congressional Democrats that Trump had “evolved” on the wall and was not “fully informed” when he made it a campaign issue.

In total, Kelly is perhaps more diplomatic than the anonymous senior administration official.

He was also more subtle than former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, who a few weeks ago said Trump was “undisciplined, doesn’t like to read” and tried to do illegal things but was often thwarted by those around him.

But at the core of Kelly’s comments was the same thing: a top Trump administration official suggesting that the political novice in the White House makes decisions with his gut and without much regard for the information that the smart people around him try to give him.

The idea that Kelly regards his biggest success as standing in Trump’s way is a pretty strong indictment of Trump as a person and of his presidency. It is also perhaps a warning of what’s to come as Trump is increasingly surrounded by yes-men and -women.

All of these are the comments of a man who knows his legacy will be tied to Trump — and who isn’t entirely comfortable with that. The Times asked him about exactly that in its ending:

--12-28-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/12/28/the-michael-cohen-prague-accusation-continues-after-sentencing.html  
Meanwhile, close observers of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe can't stop talking about whether Cohen has ever visited Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.

The visit would be noteworthy because of where it was first reported: a salacious document that has become a central talking point for those following the Russia investigation.

Christopher Steele, a former British spy, wrote in his infamous but unverified intelligence dossier compiled during the 2016 election that Cohen traveled to the city in August of that year to meet with "Kremlin officials" to discuss possible payments for hackers working against Trump's electoral rival Hillary Clinton.

Steele has said that he believes between 70 and 90 percent of the dossier is true.

Republicans have criticized the FBI for citing the dossier as part of an application to wiretap Trump's former foreign policy advisor, Carter Page, though the surveillance was approved by four judges appointed by Republicans. READ MORE…

--12-27-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/factcheck/trump-misleads-about-military-pay-raises-again/ar-BBRtiOS?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
President Donald Trump incorrectly told troops in Iraq on Wednesday that he gave them their first pay raise in more than 10 years -- a falsehood he has repeatedly told.

Speaking to troops at Al Asad Air Base during his surprise visit to Iraq, Trump told troops: "You protect us. We are always going to protect you.

And you just saw that, 'cause you just got one of the biggest pay raises you've ever received. ... You haven't gotten one in more than 10 years. More than 10 years. And we got you a big one. I got you a big one. I got you a big one."

In fact, military pay has increased every year for more than three decades. It was raised 2.4% in 2018 and then 2.6% in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. The 2.6% pay raise is the largest in the past 9 years.

--12-27-18: www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-now-claims-most-furloughed-workers-are-democrats-n952236  
Just days after claiming that "many" furloughed government workers told him they're fine with not getting paid so long as he secures additional funding for a border wall, President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday morning that "most of the people not getting paid are Democrats."

Trump, who offered no support for his claim, fired off the tweet early Thursday morning as the government shutdown entered its sixth day.

Trump said on Christmas Day he will not reopen the government until he gets $5 billion in funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. READ MORE…

--12-25-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/%e2%80%98i-am-all-alone%e2%80%99-an-isolated-trump-unleashes-a-storm-of-yuletide-gloom/ar-BBRp8oW?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP
The Christmas Eve grievances billowing from the White House on Monday formed a heavy cloud of Yuletide gloom.

In his third straight day holed up inside the White House during the partial federal government shutdown that he initiated over his demand to construct a border wall, President Trump barked out his frustrations on Twitter:

Democrats are hypocrites! The media makes up stories! Senators are wrong on foreign policy — and so is Defense Secretary Jim Mattis!

Trump said war-ravaged Syria would be rebuilt not by the United States but by Saudi Arabia. “Thanks to Saudi A!” he tweeted, two weeks after the Senate unanimously rebuked the kingdom’s crown prince for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

As the stock market closed out its worst December since 1931, the president placed sole blame for the staggering sell-off on the Federal Reserve, likening the central bank to a golfer who “can’t putt.”

That was all before noon. And then, at 12:32 p.m., came Trump’s 10th tweet of the day, a plaintive complaint from a president who craves constant interaction and praise:

“I am all alone (poor me) in the White House waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed Border Security,” he wrote.

Even for a president accustomed to firing at foes on social media, Monday’s cascade of angry tweets on a day when many Americans were celebrating the season with their families was extraordinary.

The rapid-fire missives painted the portrait of an isolated leader nursing a deep sense of injury.

“This is a picture of a lost and damaged soul,” said Peter Wehner, who served in the prior three Republican administrations and is a Trump critic.

“There’s something sad and poignant about a president isolated and alone. He’s like King Lear, raging against the winds.”

White House officials did not respond Monday to requests for comment about Trump’s tweets and activities.

Trump is acting like a commander under siege as he heads into what promises to be a treacherous 2019. Nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation — including his private business, his family’s charitable foundation, his 2016 presidential campaign and his inaugural committee.

And after Democrats take over the House majority on Jan. 3, they plan to probe alleged corruption throughout the administration, as well as his personal finances.

The president, meanwhile, is increasingly standing alone. Even some fellow Republicans criticized his abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, expressed dismay at the sudden departure of the defense secretary and opposed the criminal justice reform bill the administration championed.

On Monday, Trump appeared to be literally isolated, left largely by himself in the city he has whirled from one crisis to another. The Capitol had emptied out, with most lawmakers headed home for the holiday.

Vice President Pence was a couple of miles up the road at the Naval Observatory, celebrating Christmas Eve with his family in his residence.

First lady Melania Trump, who had flown as scheduled to Florida last week for the family’s annual Christmas trip to Mar-a-Lago, returned to Washington on Monday to celebrate the holiday with her husband.

President Trump, who had not been seen in public since before the government closed Friday, appeared Monday evening with the first lady for an annual photo opportunity tracking Santa Claus on military radar.

The couple sat in armchairs in the State Dining Room, where a fire was crackling and presents sat around two Christmas trees, and talked into separate phones to participate in NORAD Santa Tracker calls with children.

Trump risked blowing Santa’s cover when he asked a child named Coleman, “Are you still a believer in Santa? Because at seven it’s marginal, right?”

When a reporter asked about talks to reopen the government, the president replied, “Nothing new on the shutdown. We need border security.”

Later, the Trumps attended 10 p.m. services at Washington National Cathedral.

Just before sundown, Trump tweeted a photo of himself sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, wearing a suit and red tie and accompanied by two aides for what he called a “Christmas Eve briefing with my team working on North Korea.”

“Progress being made,” Trump wrote. “Looking forward to my next summit with Chairman Kim!”

There appeared to be little else on his schedule, besides what aides said was a 2 p.m. closed-door meeting on border security with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Trump declared at 5:24 p.m., “I am in the Oval Office,” and said he had just awarded “a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.”

Administration officials did not immediately provide details about the project. Trump has repeatedly boasted falsely that large portions of his border wall already have been built.

Since the partial government shutdown began overnight Friday, Trump has tapped out roughly three dozen tweets — including 10 in a span of three hours Monday that appeared to be his running list of grievances.

“It’s a sad and pathetic moment when on Christmas Eve the president of the United States is firing downer tweets in a petulant, loner mood,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “This is like Charles Dickens’s Scrooge on steroids.”

Trump’s outburst came after he had ground through some of his guardrails, firing White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and forcing Mattis to vacate his post two months before his planned exit date in retaliation for negative news coverage of the defense secretary’s resignation.

Now he faces the lack of a graceful exit path from the government shutdown, having dug in on his demand for $5 billion in funding for the border wall and fearful of making any concessions with Democrats that might set off conservative activists.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) mockingly wrote Monday on Twitter, “Hey republicans your guy is having a moment let us know if you come up w a plan to fix.”

--12-27-18: us.cnn.com/2018/12/24/politics/mccaskill-exit-interview/index.html
... While she warned that history "will judge some of my colleagues harshly that they didn't stand up to this President at some of the moments where he has been unhinged about particularly the rule of law," she also said that GOP senators have privately conceded they can't speak out against Trump because of backlash they'd receive from their base.

"Now they'll tell you, if it's just the two of you, 'The guy is nuts, he doesn't have a grasp of the issues, he's making rash decisions, he's not listening to people who know the subject matter,' " she said.

"But in public if they go after him ... they know they get a primary, and they know that's tough."

She declined to single out individual Republicans, but when asked about Sen. Lindsey Graham and the South Carolina Republican's alliance with Trump, she said: "It's kind of weird to me, I don't know what happened with Lindsey."

"This is Donald Trump's Republican Party," McCaskill said. "Make no mistake about it."

As she sat back in her chair in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's hearing room, where she served as the ranking Democrat, she said of Trump, "I mean, he's almost the master of, 'I'm going to do so much stuff that's crazy that nobody notices crazy anymore.' "

One instance, she cited, in particular was when the rapper Kanye West spouted off on a wild, profanity-laced tirade in the Oval Office -- all in front of the television cameras.

"I mean, Kanye West was in the Oval Office M-F---ing on live TV," McCaskill said, seemingly perplexed.

"I mean, think about that. That is crazy weird.

Can you imagine would have happened if that happened during the Obama years? ... The lid would have blown off this place."

She added: "I think Fox News Channel would have gone up in some kind of spontaneous combustion, had that happened (during the Obama years).

But it happens under Trump and it's like, well, just another day at the office. So there is a numbing that's gone on, that some of the craziest stuff that he says and does is not as noticeable because there's so much of it." READ MORE…

***12-23-18: us.cnn.com/2018/12/22/opinions/trumps-relationship-with-whitaker-imperils-the-rule-of-law-campbell/index.html  
(CNN) — For those of us who viewed President Trump's decision to appoint Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general with great skepticism, our greatest fears are now manifest.

When Whitaker was originally announced for the position in November, many were disturbed by Trump's decision to select a chief law enforcement officer who had spoken out so strongly against special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign.

They feared -- as do I -- that a President who does not respect the independence of the Justice Department was attempting to install an acolyte who would either seek to limit the Russia probe or disband it altogether and possibly interfere with other investigations into Trump World.

The entire affair smacked of malfeasance. As it turns out, our concerns were well founded.

Friday, CNN reported a bombshell story about at least two incidents in which President Trump lashed out at Whitaker, according to multiple sources.

Trump was apparently upset about Michael Cohen, who was sentenced December 12 to three years in prison after pleading guilty to financial crimes and lying to Congress.

Trump's former lawyer and fixer opted to cooperate with the government and implicated the President in federal campaign finance violations while revealing more about Trump's foreign business entanglements.

According to the CNN reporting, Trump fumed that Whitaker wasn't doing more to control federal prosecutors.

The President's blatant disregard for institutional norms cannot be overstated. The Justice Department and FBI have long enjoyed unique independence from the White House, compared to other government agencies.

This degree of autonomy is what sets America apart from dictatorships and banana republics around the world, where heads of state freely use law enforcement to insulate themselves and target political opponents.

Indeed, when I served in a senior position at the FBI, my colleagues and I knew that continual communication with the White House was essential to the President's ability to exercise his duties -- but discussing the specifics of ongoing criminal investigations was off-limits, absent extraordinary circumstances.

The Justice Department's own policy strictly regulates which topics can be discussed with an administration.

Talking to Trump about an investigation involving him would be unthinkable. That he felt so free to vent his frustration to the nation's chief law enforcement officer speaks volumes about how closely he views that relationship.

Unfortunately, the alarming report appears to be just another example of an ongoing pattern with this President.

In June 2017, my former boss, FBI Director James Comey, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about a one-on-one meeting with Trump, during which the President expressed his hope that the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn could be dropped.

Trump has denied that he asked Comey to shut down the investigation.

Related Article: Whitaker rejected ethics official's advice he should recuse from Russia probe

It was also reported that Trump previously pressed Whitaker, who was serving as chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the time, for details about investigations involving his former presidential campaign rival, Hillary Clinton.

The President reportedly told his White House lawyer that he wanted to use the Justice Department to prosecute both Comey and Clinton, The New York Times reported, citing two sources familiar with the conversation. READ MORE…

--12-24-18: edition.cnn.com/2018/12/24/politics/mnuchin-markets-economy/index.html  
(CNN) — Facing pressure from President Donald Trump to stabilize nervous equity markets, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin publicly declared this weekend that his boss wasn't planning to fire the Federal Reserve chairman and that markets have enough liquidity for lending.

But rather than assure investors, those steps only seemed to underscore the anxiety emanating from the White House over shaky markets -- and the effect they could have on Trump's political standing.

Mnuchin speaks with US bank executives to reassure investors after Wall Street whiplash

A statement issued by the Treasury Department on Sunday declaring major bank CEOs told Mnuchin on phone calls they had "ample liquidity" to lend only furthered the notion the administration is working to tamp down a crisis that doesn't yet exist -- and in the process is raising concerns that could shake markets further.

Liquidity is the term used to refer to the ability of banks to lend money to clients.

The CEOs who spoke individually by phone Sunday with Mnuchin were "totally baffled" by the sessions, according to a person familiar with the calls, who said the executives found the encounters puzzling and largely unnecessary.

"It was totally out of left field and an odd thing to do," the person said, describing the timing of the calls -- on a Sunday before markets opened -- as strange.

The markets closed on Christmas Eve, a day after the round of calls, with the Dow dropping 653 points. READ MORE…

12-27-18 IMPORTANT: www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/house-oversight-committee-sent-trump-s-white-house-agencies-51-ncna951876  
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-M.D., the soon-to-be chairman of the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is getting a jump on the new year.

A few days before Christmas, Cummings sent 51 letters to the White House, multiple federal agencies and the Trump administration requesting full compliance with the document requests by January 11, 2019.

These letters are the first formal looks at what type of agenda Cummings and House Democrats will pursue when they officially take control of the committee — and majority — on January 3.

Cummings is casting a wide, but deliberate net; Many of the documents he is pursuing were asked for by House Republicans as well. Trump’s defenders in Congress will find it harder to label Cummings a purely partisan investigator if his first investigations are similar to those pursued by his colleagues across the aisle.

The major difference is if the Trump administration ignores these requests, Cummings, unlike his Republican predecessor, will presumably issue subpoenas to get to the truth.
While it is impossible to know what will come out of these requests, the letters offer some clues about what Trump officials can expect in 2019.

In a request that went to the entire Cabinet, Cummings writes, “I am writing to request that you fully comply with the Committee’s previous bipartisan request for documents regarding the agency’s compliance with whistleblower protection laws, a set forth in the letter from Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Gerald E. Connelly…on February 7, 2017.

I intend to continue this investigation in the next Congress.” The goal of this request is to expose efforts by the Trump administration to illegally retaliate against whistleblowers willing to sound the alarm on misconduct.

In his letter to FEMA Administrator William Long, Cummings notes, “more than a year ago, on October 11, 2017, Chairman Trey Gowdy and Rep. Cummings sent a bipartisan request to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)” seeking “documents or communications received, prepared, or sent” related to the preparation and response to hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The committee’s investigation into the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina resulted in devastating hearings and allegations of misconduct. The fallout is now an indelible part of Bush’s legacy, and a similar outcome is certainly possible here, depending on what the committee finds.

The crisis at the southwestern border will also likely be an issue the committee will investigate.

Writing to the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services, Cummings cites a July 5, 2018 letter sent by Rep. Mark Meadows requesting documents related to the administration’s family separation policy.

In the wake of a 7-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy dying in Border Patrol custody, this investigation could have major consequences as the committee examines the treatment of immigrant families.

In a government-wide request, Cummings also requested compliance with bipartisan letters sent on September 25, 2017 and October 20, 2017 regarding the federal government’s compliance with the Federal Records Act.

This is clearly related to recent revelations of private email use by Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Cummings specifically addresses this issue in his letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone. READ MUCH MORE…

12-24-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/%e2%80%98very-telling%e2%80%99-that-trump-didn%e2%80%99t-know-his-own-anti-isis-point-man-former-official-says/ar-BBRmiWj?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
In a May 2017 Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was flanked by perhaps the two most important U.S. officials coordinating the fight against the Islamic State.

One was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Joseph F. Dunford.

The other one was Brett McGurk, a State Department official whom Mattis introduced as “President Trump’s special envoy” to the coalition.

McGurk was tasked with coordinating international efforts, from NATO allies to militia groups, in the effort against Islamic State militants in the region.

But in the midst of his resignation to protest Trump’s sudden decision to pull out about 2,000 troops from Syria, McGurk himself was somehow overlooked by Trump, according to the president.

“Brett McGurk, who I do not know, was appointed by President Obama in 2015,” Trump said Saturday on Twitter. “Was supposed to leave in February but he just resigned prior to leaving. Grandstander? The Fake News is making such a big deal about this nothing event!”

It is not clear whether Trump meant he never met McGurk or was otherwise unfamiliar with him. McGurk was scheduled to leave in February, making his instant resignation symbolic.

But Trump’s assertion raised questions about his awareness of or interest in the intricate policies surrounding one of his cornerstone campaign promises — the defeat of the Islamic State, in which McGurk played a central role in Washington, Baghdad and elsewhere.

“It’s almost certainly true the president has, in fact, met Brett McGurk,” a former senior defense official who worked closely with McGurk told The Washington Post.

Having not done so, the former official said, “would be an indictment of the president himself had he not met the individual coordinating the international coalition against the Islamic State.”

12-23-18: www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/only-62percent-of-rich-republicans-would-re-elect-trump-cnbc-survey.html  
Wealthy Republicans lose faith in Trump, as nearly 40% say they wouldn't vote to re-elect him: CNBC survey.

•Just 34 percent of America's millionaires, and only 62 percent of wealthy conservatives, say they would vote to re-elect President Trump if the election were held today, the latest CNBC Millionaire Survey reveals.

•Twenty percent of respondents, including 18 percent of Republican millionaires, think President Donald Trump won't even be the Republican nominee for president in 2020.

•Wealthy Americans are an important, politically active group and 96 percent say they voted in the midterm elections in November. READ MORE…

***12-23-18: www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-announces-mattis-leaving-two-months-early-amid-blowback-over-n951386  President Donald Trump announced in a Sunday tweet that Defense Secretary James Mattis will leave his position on Jan. 1 — two months earlier than Mattis pledged to depart in his resignation letter last week.

Trump said Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, will take over as acting Defense Secretary.

"Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, & previously Boeing," Trump tweeted. "He will be great!"

The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump, angry with coverage of Mattis' resignation, sought to expedite his departure.

Mattis resigned after Trump appeared to unilaterally move to remove 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria against advice of the Pentagon.

Soon after Trump announced plans to withdraw troops from Syria, the president ordered the withdrawal of 7,000 troops from Afghanistan

Trump administration aides told The Times that Trump became increasingly furious in the days following Mattis' strongly worded resignation letter.

The Times reporting added that the president initially "did not understand just how forceful a rejection of his strategy Mr. Mattis had issued." READ MORE…

--12-26-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/did-a-queens-podiatrist-help-donald-trump-avoid-vietnam/ar-BBRropb?ocid=U147DHP  
In the fall of 1968, Donald J. Trump received a timely diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that led to his medical exemption from the military during Vietnam.

For 50 years, the details of how the exemption came about, and who made the diagnosis, have remained a mystery, with Mr. Trump himself saying during the presidential campaign that he could not recall who had signed off on the medical documentation.

Now a possible explanation has emerged about the documentation. It involves a foot doctor in Queens who rented his office from Mr. Trump’s father, Fred C. Trump, and a suggestion that the diagnosis was granted as a courtesy to the elder Mr. Trump.

The podiatrist, Dr. Larry Braunstein, died in 2007. But his daughters say their father often told the story of coming to the aid of a young Mr. Trump during the Vietnam War as a favor to his father.

“I know it was a favor,” said one daughter, Dr. Elysa Braunstein, 56, who along with her sister, Sharon Kessel, 53, shared the family’s account for the first time publicly when contacted by The New York Times.

Elysa Braunstein said the implication from her father was that Mr. Trump did not have a disqualifying foot ailment. “But did he examine him? I don’t know,” she said.

For decades, Dr. Braunstein saw patients in a congested ground-floor office below Edgerton Apartments in Jamaica, Queens, one of dozens of buildings owned by the Trumps in the 1960s. The family sold the building in 2004, records show.

“What he got was access to Fred Trump,” Elysa Braunstein said. “If there was anything wrong in the building, my dad would call and Trump would take care of it immediately. That was the small favor that he got.” READ MORE…

--12-27-18 GOOD NEWS: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/msnbc-beats-fox-in-key-ratings-for-first-time-in-17-years/ar-BBRsVsh?ocid=U147DHP  
MSNBC beat out Fox News last week in key ratings for first time in 17 years, topping its competitors in total average viewers for the first time since 2000, according to a news release from MSNBC.

MSNBC averaged 1,558,000 total viewers during the "sales day" (6 a.m. to 2 a.m.) between Dec. 17-21, while Fox News averaged 1,541,000 total viewers. CNN, meanwhile, averaged 975,000.

Among people between the ages of 25 and 54, a key demographic for cable news networks, MSNBC also finished the week as the No. 1.

--12-27-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/iraqi-lawmakers-demand-us-withdrawal-after-trump-visit/ar-BBRtYmd?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers Thursday demanded U.S. forces leave the country in the wake of a surprise visit by President Donald Trump that politicians denounced as arrogant and a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

Politicians from both blocs of Iraq's divided Parliament called for a vote to expel U.S. troops and promised to schedule an extraordinary session to debate the matter.

"Parliament must clearly and urgently express its view about the ongoing American violations of Iraqi sovereignty," said Salam al-Shimiri, a lawmaker loyal to the populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Trump, making his first presidential visit to troops in a troubled region Wednesday, said he has no plans to withdraw the 5,200 U.S. forces in the country.

Containing foreign influence has become a hot-button issue in a year that saw al-Sadr supporters win the largest share of votes in May elections. Al-Sadr has called for curbing U.S. and Iranian involvement in Iraqi affairs.

U.S. troops are stationed in Iraq as part of the coalition against the Islamic State group. American forces withdrew in 2011 after invading in 2003 but returned in 2014 at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help fight the jihadist group.

But after defeating IS militants in their last urban bastions last year, Iraqi politicians and militia leaders are speaking out against the continued presence of U.S. forces in Iraqi soil.

Qais Khazali, the head of the Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia that fought key battles against IS in north Iraq, promised on Twitter that Parliament would vote to expel U.S. forces from Iraq, or the militia and others would force them out by "other means." READ MORE…

--12-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-epa-says-limits-on-mercury-emissions-from-coal-plants-not-necessary/ar-BBRxEb9?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=U147DHP   ONE OF SO MANY REASONS THAT SHOWS HOW DANGEROUS DONALD IS…

--12-28-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/n-carolina-governor-reshapes-board-amid-congressional-probe/ar-BBRwF7t?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
RALEIGH, N.C. — The dissolution Friday of North Carolina's elections board injected further uncertainty into a still-undecided congressional race as the Democratic governor sought an interim panel to investigate ballot fraud allegations while Republicans argued he doesn't have the power to do so.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper announced he would appoint an interim Board of Elections after a three-judge state court panel ruled Thursday that the current board should disband at noon Friday.

Cooper's move would fill the gap until a new law governing the statewide elections panel can take effect — and also allow the board to proceed with a Jan. 11 evidentiary hearing into the 9th district congressional race.

But the chairman of the state GOP, Robin Hayes, argued that Cooper's proposal was an "illegal sham" and said no Republicans would participate, complicating Cooper's efforts.

The state Elections Board has refused to certify the race between Republican Mark Harris and Democrat Dan McCready while it investigates absentee ballot irregularities in the congressional district stretching from the Charlotte area through several counties to the east.

Harris holds a slim lead in unofficial results, but election officials are looking into criminal allegations against an operative hired by the Harris campaign.

Friday's standoff was set in motion by the latest ruling from a state court that previously found the elections board's makeup unconstitutional in a protracted legal battle launched when the

The court had ruled earlier this year to allow the board to remain in place until Friday while it investigates the congressional race. The latest ruling came as lawmakers enacted a new law on Thursday to largely restore the board to how it operated before 2016.

Cooper started the process Friday of rebuilding the elections board by informing the state Democratic and Republican parties that he plans to create an interim panel with five members of the current elections board, unless he receives different picks from the state parties. The interim board would last until the new law takes effect Jan. 31.

He said he would appoint both Democrats and Republicans to comply with pre-2016 state elections law he says is temporarily back in force.

"All of these members have election law experience and an awareness of the circumstances around the allegations involved in the Ninth Congressional District election.

They have all cleared ethics and conflicts checks and new members would require extra time to have that process completed," Cooper said in his letter to state party heads. READ MORE…

--12-25-18: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/not-a-%e2%80%98department-of-no%e2%80%99-new-defense-chief-turns-trump%e2%80%99s-demands-into-policy/ar-BBRp2RC?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  

Jan 7, 2019 13:29:39 GMT -5 michcusejoe5 said:

So DoMe, just so we are clear...its all Trump and has nothing to do with the market already being substantially overvalued, interest rates rising, the Fed tightening/shrinking their balance sheet? The "sugar high" you mentioned was ZIRP and QE. You are making the all too common mistake of trying to diagnose why the air may be coming out of the bubble (while also being wrong about it) rather than trying to figure out why the bubble inflated in the first place. The latter is what matters.

To be clear, I dont think the trade wars are blameless but they are also not the main contributor (and lets be honest once a deal of some sort is announced with the Chinese the market will skyrocket). I dont like tariffs as a general rule but sometimes economic pressure (which means short term pain) is necessary to rebalance or work in our long term interest. I just finished a biography about James Madison and this was one of the big things I took away from it (Madison was a big believer in imposing economic pressure on the likes of Britain and France to get them to end their own bad behavior). This doesnt mean it always works, but the strategy is also not unheard of but things werent exactly on the right track with the status quo either (China's increasing and manipulative influence leading the way).

Also, cant help but notice that your post makes no mention of the December jobs report released on Friday. 312k jobs created vs. estimates of 180k. Wages rising. Workforce participation rate rising. Jobs gains for October and November revised upwards. 2018 was the best year for manufacturing in the US in decades. Remember those stone age jobs that you and Obama told us were never coming back? We've created nearly 500k of them since the start of 2017. These numbers are incredible at this stage in the cycle. This is all not even to mention that the average household (making the median income with 1 child) will take home 2% more (or ~$1200) due to the tax cut (not just for the rich, that is a lie).

But I guess you are just for the rich, rather than the low and middle income households that are benefiting from this economy.

JOE:  Like always you Pick & Choose...I guess you passed over the Sentence where I Stated:

"The Danger Level is like beyond reason (Though I am not saying, Donald is 100% blame for the big markets drops—but he is responsible for a lot of the DROP)."

Now, if you do not believe Donald has nothing to do with the DROP in December than you should be a GUEST on CNBC & BLOOMBERG so WE can all laugh at you as you are laughed off these shows.

However, you NEVER fail to disappoint me...