The Political Thread

It will Baffles me and will Baffle me, until the day I die; that there are STILL Millions of Americans, that STILL support Donald & The GOP.

How can anyone STILL support Donald who is a = Corrupt, A Compulsive Serial Liar, A Bully, A Racist, Etc. Etc. Etc. ???

I think it VERIFIES my Theory that America has been hit with an Stupid Virus Epidemic???!!!

On the other hand, there is Good News; but at WHAT COST? = More & More Voters have MOVED to the Democratic Party.

The Latest On The DARK CLOUDS Surrounding Donald, the GOP and Related Articles:

01-18-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-circular-firing-squad-mueller-targets-turn-on-each-other/ar-BBSoxcF?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP

 THEY EAT THEIR OWN…
Rudy Giuliani sent an unmistakable message Wednesday night: It’s everyone for themselves.

During a CNN interview, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer blurted out that the only person he knows about who didn’t collude with Russia was Trump himself.

Although Giuliani tried to walk back his comments on Thursday, the remarks put the sprawling web of people caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe on notice: no one is coming to save you.

“Ya think!!!” one former Trump campaign official wrote to POLITICO when asked if Giuliani was trying to protect the president at the expense of everyone who worked for him.

The Team Trump infighting has been a prosecutor’s dream for Mueller, opening up an ever-widening window into the behind-the-scenes workings of a rookie politician whose campaign has been under investigation for years.

The special counsel and federal prosecutors have already benefited from the internal sniping, flipping Trump’s former lawyer, national security adviser and campaign chairman.

Bickering and backstabbing were Trump world trade marks long before the former businessman launched his White House bid, from the real estate mogul’s decades of private business dealings to his years as a reality television star.

But the attitude has taken on a completely new life as Mueller’s 20-month-old probe creeps increasingly closer to the president.

Now the sniping can have long-term legal consequences, and the president and his former aides have used press interviews, social media posts and court filings to take shots at each other in the interest of protecting themselves and their reputations.

“Nobody is really on the same team anymore when you’ve worked with Donald Trump,” said Sam Nunberg, a former Trump 2016 campaign aide who has been questioned multiple times by Mueller and congressional investigators.

“Trump puts everyone against each other when you work for him,” he added. “While he demands loyalty, he doesn’t return it.

Loyalty is not a two-way street, especially when you’ve got special counsel involved in it.” READ MORE…

--01-18-19: slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/01/trump-perjury-michael-cohen-compromised-russia-mueller.html  
If the president of the United States directed his personal attorney and fixer to help sabotage the Russia investigation by lying to Congress, there is no turning back for the nation.

Given the independent corroborating evidence that special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly has to show that’s what the president did, things are only going to get worse for the White House from here.

Cohen’s lying to Congress (and the special counsel’s office) was not only about covering up a secret deal with the Kremlin during the heart of the campaign, a deal that potentially even included an illegal payoff for Putin personally.

It was also a direct hit on the Russia investigation itself.

The special counsel told the court that Cohen’s lies to both Congress and the special counsel were “intended to limit ongoing investigations into Russian interference in a U.S. presidential election, and the question of any links or coordination between a campaign and a foreign government.”

What makes the Cohen lies even worse—and yes, far worse than Watergate—is that it exposed any U.S. officials who were involved in orchestrating his false testimony subject to blackmail by Russia.

As Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney and professor at the University of Michigan Law School, wrote at Just Security, “in the context of counterintelligence investigations, lies can also compromise national security. …

A foreign adversary like Russia can use lies as leverage over government officials to coerce them into complying with its demands or else face exposure of the lies.”

As former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified in the context of Flynn’s lying about Russian contacts, “To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”

If Trump suborned Cohen’s false statements, the president would have exposed not only himself to Kremlin blackmail, but also other members of his team who, according to court documents and reporting, helped orchestrate his personal lawyer’s congressional testimony. READ MORE…

01-18-19: www.cnbc.com/2019/01/18/trump-attorney-general-pick-william-barr-president-encouraging-perjury-is-committing-crime.htmlm  
Just because the president does it doesn't make it legal, President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general says.

William Barr, Trump's nominee for attorney, earlier this week agreed during sworn testimony in the Senate that a president who persuades someone to commit perjury is committing the crime of obstruction of justice.

"Any person who persuades another to" commit perjury has obstructed justice, Barr told Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Tuesday at his confirmation hearing at the Judiciary Committee.

Barr's televised admission of that otherwise uncontroversial fact rocketed around social media Thursday night after a bombshell BuzzFeed report.

BuzzFeed, citing law-enforcement sources, said Trump directed his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen in 2017 to lie to Congress in sworn statements about details of an aborted effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, Russia. READ MORE…

--01-18-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congress-to-probe-report-that-trump-directed-lawyer-to-lie-to-congress/ar-BBSq2X2?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP)  
The Democratic chairmen of two House committees pledged Friday to investigate a report that President Donald Trump directed his personal attorney to lie to Congress about negotiations over a real estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said "we will do what's necessary to find out if it's true."

He said the allegation that Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie in his 2017 testimony to Congress "in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date."

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, said directing a subordinate to lie to Congress is a federal crime.

"The @housejudiciary Committee's job is to get to the bottom of it, and we will do that work," Nadler tweeted.

The report by BuzzFeed News, citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, says that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that Cohen regularly briefed Trump and his family on the Moscow project — even as Trump said he had no business dealings with Russia.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed the BuzzFeed report.

An adviser to Cohen, Lanny Davis, declined to comment on the substance of the article, saying that he and Cohen wouldn't answer questions out of respect for special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.

Mueller is investigating Russia meddling in the election and contacts with the Trump campaign.

The BuzzFeed story says that Cohen told Mueller that Trump personally instructed him to lie about the timing of the project in order to obscure Trump's involvement. READ MORE…

--01-18-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mcconnell-blocks-bill-to-reopen-most-of-government/ar-BBSozi5?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP

 NO SURPRISE HERE; BUT SAD!!! However, it just DRIVES more Voters to the Democrats…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked legislation on Thursday that would have reopened most of the federal government impacted by the partial shutdown.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) tried to get consent to take up a House-passed bill that would reopen all agencies except the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is at the center of the shutdown fight. But McConnell objected.

The Senate GOP leader didn't explain his objection from the Senate floor but he has warned for weeks that he will not bring up a government funding bill unless it's the product of an agreement between congressional Democratic leadership and President Trump.

"The solution to this is a negotiation between the one person in the country who can sign something into law, the president of the United States, and our Democratic colleagues," McConnell said Tuesday when he blocked a House bill as well as a piece of legislation to fund DHS through Feb. 8.

This marks the third time that McConnell has blocked House-passed government funding bills in the past two weeks. Under Senate rules, any senator can ask for consent to vote on or pass a bill, but any senator can object. READ MORE…

--01-16-19: thehill.com/homenews/administration/425584-trump-loses-support-from-key-constituency-of-white-people-without-a  
President Trump appears to be losing support of white Americans without college degrees, a constituency that has been previously reliable, according to new polling.

Forty-five percent of whites without college degrees approved of the job done by Trump in a new CNN poll released Monday, compared to 54 percent who had backed him in a poll conducted in December.

A Quinnipiac University National Poll also released Monday shows a similar trend.

In that survey, approval for Trump among non-college educated whites dropped from 56 to 53 percent, with Trump still getting a majority of support from the group. Disapproval rose from 37 to 43 percent.

The partial government shutdown, which entered its 26th day on Wednesday, may be a factor in the declining support. READ MORE…

--01-17-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/grifters-weaklings-felons-christie-on-the-trump-white-house/ar-BBSlHpM?li=BBnb7Kz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie sees the Trump White House as a rogues' gallery of flawed people sidetracking the work of the U.S. president, according to excerpts of his forthcoming memoir posted on the news site Axios on Wednesday.

President Donald Trump employs a "revolving door of deeply flawed individuals — amateurs, grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons — who were hustled into jobs they were never suited for, sometimes seemingly without so much as a background check via Google or Wikipedia," Christie, who was a senior adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign, says in his memoir, "Let Me Finish," which is due to be released on Jan. 29.

Christie had sought the Republican presidential nomination himself in 2016 before becoming a diligent supporter and surrogate for Trump, but his work with the administration has been limited and he recently withdrew his name from consideration for Trump's chief of staff.

Marred by his own scandal as governor of New York's southern neighbor, Christie writes that Trump "trusts people he shouldn’t, including some of the people who are closest to him."

"I did everything I could to make sure my friend Donald reached the White House fully prepared to serve," he writes.

"But a handful of selfish individuals sidetracked our very best efforts. They set loose toxic forces that have made Trump’s presidency far less effective than it would otherwise have been." READ MORE…

--01-17-19: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/michael-steele-collusion_us_5c4003f1e4b0a8dbe16d9402?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__TheMorningEmail__011719&utm_content=__TheMorningEmail__011719+CID_b5797651e429ec27bcba48d5e3e249cf&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=HuffPost&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011719  
Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, fired off a warning to Republican lawmakers supporting President Donald Trump’s Russia agenda.

On Wednesday, GOP senators blocked a move to maintain sanctions against companies linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Steele said on MSNBC that the lawmakers were “circling the wagons” to help Trump.

Host Ari Melber called it “potentially collusion-y.”

Steele quickly corrected him.

“It’s all collusion,” he said:

“It’s all collusion because in my estimation, if you’re taking these steps given the information, the facts, as we now see them being laid out and you’re going to slow the roll, legislatively, then you’re now a part of this narrative just as much as anybody else is as far as I’m concerned.

Particularly when these guys have the evidence. They have more information than you do sitting here, and you’ve got a lot.”

Steele added that to some Republican lawmakers, “the most important thing is to give cover to this president.”

In a separate segment about the government shutdown, above, Steele also said Trump has “met his match” in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after she asked to postpone the State of the Union address because of the shutdown.

“He doesn’t know what to do with this woman. He has no idea,” Steele said. “That’s why he’s sitting in the White House frustrated, because she’s not biting on the kernels of crazy he’s putting out there.”

--01-17-19: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-hotel-emoluments-clause_us_5c3f9f5ee4b0a8dbe16d482e?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=__TheMorningEmail__011719&utm_content=__TheMorningEmail__011719+CID_b5797651e429ec27bcba48d5e3e249cf&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=HuffPost&ncid=newsltushpmgnews__TheMorningEmail__011719  
A “constitutional cloud” hangs over President Donald Trump’s lease to operate a hotel out of the government-owned Old Post Office Building in Washington, D.C., according to a new government report.

The General Services Administration’s inspector general found Wednesday that the agency ignored the Constitution’s emoluments clauses when it reviewed the 2014 deal in light of Trump’s 2016 election win.

The GSA had concluded in March 2017 that the hotel was not in violation of its lease, which forbids any benefits going to elected officials.

But according to the new watchdog report, lawyers at the agency did not investigate whether the Constitution’s domestic or foreign emoluments clauses posed a problem for a hotel owned by the president of the United States.

The emoluments clauses prohibit federal officials from receiving any financial or material benefit from a foreign government, a U.S. state government or any part of the federal government. The report also found that there was no undue influence involved in the approval of the lease.

“We found that GSA recognized that the President’s business interest in the [Old Post Office] lease raised issues under the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses that might cause a breach of the lease; however, GSA decided not to address those issues in connection with the management of the lease,” the inspector general report says. That decision, it continued, “leaves a constitutional cloud over the lease.”

Since Trump came into office, his Trump International Hotel in D.C. has been a source of controversy, as lobbyists, foreign governments and corporate executives have patronized the establishment in a bid to curry favor with the White House.

The report was the result of multiple requests to the inspector general’s office from members of Congress and good-government groups to investigate the management of the president’s lease.

These requests largely came from congressional Democrats who were then in the minority in Congress. These members now control the oversight committees in the House of Representatives. READ MORE…

--01-16-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/senator-says-congress-almost-ready-for-trump-indictment/ar-BBSjz3Q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
A senior Democratic senator has suggested Congress is almost ready to indict President Donald Trump, and is hopeful he may face criminal charges.

Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, spoke to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo on Tuesday and stressed that while Congress is closing in on Trump, more evidence is required for an air-tight case.

“I do not at all subscribe to the [Office of Legal Counsel] theory that a president can’t be indicted,” Whitehouse told Cuomo. “I think that if there are crimes that he has committed he should be indicted.”

“I think that the Office of Legal Counsel [OLC] and the Department of Justice bends over backward to take the most executive branch-friendly position that it possibly can,” he continued, “but I think a court taking a look at this would say, ‘No, no no, no, no.’”

The OLC says that indicting a sitting president would be unconstitutional as it would “undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

But Whitehouse cited “the Nixon precedents and others,” which he said do not support the concept of a president “not being answerable to the public in this way.”

The senator warned that an unanswerable president “would create a terrible situation—you've got a president who the public knows is the subject of criminal investigation, may very well be involved in criminal activity, and you don't get a resolution of that question.

You don’t get pressure on him to answer questions and get out—that doesn’t seem like an appropriate way to deal with it.”

However, when Cuomo asked if there was enough evidence against Trump to bring charges now, Whitehouse noted he would like investigators to have more time.

A former U.S. attorney and former attorney general for Rhode Island, Whitehouse said: “I would want to know a lot more.”

“We are certainly in a mode, I believe, of moving toward indictment and charges of the president.

But I do not believe, based on what I know―[special counsel Robert Mueller] may know more―that we’re at the stage of actually being able to make the charge.”

Cuomo then put it to the senator that there is still no proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but Whitehouse disagreed. “I would not say that,” he told the journalist. “I would say there has been no direct proof.”

“I think that there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that has piled up that one perhaps could take to a jury. But as a prosecutor carrying the burden of persuasion with reasonable doubt on the defendant's side, I’d want to keep investigating and try to get some really direct evidence.”

--01-16-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-memo-trump%e2%80%99s-troubles-pile-higher/ar-BBSgUDV?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP  
President Trump's troubles are piling up higher than ever - and there is no easy way out from beneath them.

The White House was rocked by two dramatic Russia-related stories over the weekend, one of which noted that the FBI had opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump in 2017, amid concerns that the president could be working to advance the Kremlin's interests.

There is no end in sight to a partial government shutdown that most are pinning on the president.

Democrats, now in control of the House, plan to ratchet up the pressure on Trump with hearings on a range of topics that could damage him politically.

And the dynamics of the 2020 presidential race are already being felt. Trump's nominee to be attorney general, William Barr, will go before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. He is sure to face aggressive questioning from Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), all of whom are possible presidential candidates.

The president, characteristically, evinces confidence amid the maelstrom.

In a speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation's convention in New Orleans on Monday, he talked up the positive changes his administration has, in his view, wrought on the nation. He was steadfast in his insistence that new sections of wall along the southern border had to be built.

"When it comes to keeping the American people safe, I will never ever back down," Trump said. "I didn't need this fight."

But there is little sign that these arguments are gaining wider traction, either in relation to the shutdown - which is now the longest in American history - or in terms of the popular perceptions of Trump's presidency.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Sunday found 53 percent of respondents believe that Trump and Republicans are "mainly responsible" for the shutdown, while only 29 percent blame Democrats in Congress.

A CNN poll conducted by SSRS, also released on Sunday, indicated that 55 percent of adults surveyed believe Trump bears primary responsibility, while 32 percent point the finger at Democrats.

Trump's overall job approval ratings are negative. In the RealClearPolitics polling average, 41.4 percent of Americans approved of Trump's performance in office while 55 percent disapproved, as of Monday afternoon.

Republicans critical of the president believe he is deluding himself with his assertions of his own political strength.

"He has enormous unwarranted confidence in himself," said John "Mac" Stipanovich, a longtime Florida GOP operative and a frequent Trump critic. "He won against all odds. I think that distorted his view of the world." READ MORE…

--01-18-19: www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-weighed-targeting-migrant-families-speeding-deportation-children-n958811  
WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials weighed speeding up the deportation of migrant children by denying them their legal right to asylum hearings after separating them from their parents, according to comments on a late 2017 draft of what became the administration's family separation policy obtained by NBC News.

The draft also shows officials wanted to specifically target parents in migrant families for increased prosecutions, contradicting the administration's previous statements. In June, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said the administration did "not have a policy of separating families at the border" but was simply enforcing existing law.

The authors noted that the "increase in prosecutions would be reported by the media and it would have a substantial deterrent effect."

The draft plan was provided to NBC News by the office of Sen. Jeff Merkley, D.-Ore., which says it was leaked by a government whistleblower. READ MORE…

--01-17-19: us.cnn.com/2019/01/17/politics/michael-cohen-poll-rigging/index.html
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump's former "fixer" Michael Cohen paid the head of a small technology company thousands in 2015 to rig online polls and elevate Cohen's character to benefit Trump's presidential campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

According to the paper, Cohen paid John Gauger, the owner of RedFinch Solutions LLC, between $12,000 and $13,000 for activities related to Trump's campaign, including "trying unsuccessfully to manipulate two online polls in Mr. Trump's favor" and creating a Twitter account called "@womenforcohen" that "praised (Cohen's) looks and character, and promoted his appearances and statements boosting" Trump's candidacy.

In making the claim, Gauger told the paper he wasn't fully paid for the work, though the Journal said Cohen was reimbursed $50,000 -- the amount the two originally agreed on for Gauger's services -- by the Trump Organization.

Gauger, according to the paper, also received a boxing glove "worn by a Brazilian mixed-martial arts fighter" along with the cash payment.

The paper said that Cohen denied paying Gauger in cash, instead telling the Journal that "all monies paid to Mr. Gauger were by check" and declining to comment further.

The Trump Organization did not comment. Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for Trump, told the paper that the allegation that Cohen received more money than what he paid to Gauger shows he's a "thief." READ MORE…

--01-17-19: us.cnn.com/2019/01/17/politics/michael-cohen-testify-congress-concern-family/index.html
Washington (CNN) — President Donald Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen remains on track to testify before Congress in February, but he is concerned for his family, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Cohen agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee on February 7. One of the sources said Cohen is concerned that a public hearing would make things worse for his family and is concerned about their safety.

Trump publicly suggested in a Fox News interview over the weekend, without providing evidence, that he is aware of damaging information about Cohen's family.

The source said Cohen was glad that the chairman of the committee, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, put out a strong statement condemning Trump's remarks to Fox.

"It is unacceptable for anyone -- including the President -- to try to bully or intimidate our witnesses, to try to get them not to testify, to try to scare or threaten their family members, or to try to interfere with Congress' search for the truth," Cummings said earlier this week.

"Our Committee has a long and bipartisan history of protecting the ability of witnesses to provide their information to us without even the appearance of intimidation or retaliation." READ MORE…

--01-18-19: finance.yahoo.com/news/consumer-sentiment-michigan-lowest-trump-election-154419996.html  
Consumer sentiment is crumbling.

The preliminary reading for the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index in January declined to the lowest level since President Donald Trump was elected.

The headline index registered at 90.7 in January, falling sharply below consensus estimates of 96.8, according to Bloomberg. This compares to December’s reading of 98.3.

It’s also the lowest reading since October 2016, when the index registered at 87.2. And it’s just the latest economic metric to drop to pre-election levels.

The index of consumer expectations, which is a component of the headline index, dropped to 78.3 from 87.0 in December.

“The decline primarily focused on prospects for the domestic economy, with the year-ahead outlook for the national economy judged the worst since mid-2014,” Richard Curtin, Surveys of Consumers chief economist, said in a statement.

A multitude of concerns has been hitting Main Street.

“The loss was due to a host of issues including the partial government shutdown, the impact of tariffs, instabilities in financial markets, the global slowdown, and the lack of clarity about monetary policies,” he added. “Aside from the direct economic impact from these various issues on the economy, the indirect effect meant that half of all consumers believed that these events would have a negative impact on Trump's ability to focus on economic growth.”

JPMorgan economist Daniel Silver called the January preliminary reading “a big disappointment relative to expectations.”

He highlighted the government shutdown and uncertainty about the stock market following a volatile fourth quarter for equity trading as factors weighing on sentiment.

“This drop in sentiment is a sign that the government shutdown is negatively impacting consumer attitudes, although the press release noted that just one in 10 consumers mentioned the government shutdown in their responses,” Silver wrote in a note.

“Other factors also are likely impacting consumer sentiment, and the Michigan survey showed a surge in responses reporting unfavorable news about the stock market.”

--01-16-19: www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/heres-how-much-members-of-congress-get-paid-even-during-a-government-shutdown/ar-BBShI2p?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U147DHP SHUTDOWN = SHOULD BE NO PAY FOR CONGRESS!!!...
The record-setting partial government shutdown, which began Dec. 22, continues to drag on, meaning hundreds of thousands of federal employees are being asked to work without pay or to stay home.

But members of Congress are still collecting paychecks.

It's in the Constitution, as The Washington Times reported last year at this time, during a different shutdown: "Article I, Section 6 of the U.S. Constitution allows the lawmakers to still get paid their salaries, despite the federal government being shut down due to their inability to reach an agreement."

Just how much do members of Congress bring home?

They've been receiving an annual salary since 1855, when they were paid $3,000 per year. Currently, "the compensation for most Senators, Representatives, Delegates, and the Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico is $174,000," the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports, with a few exceptions.

They also receive retirement, health and other benefits.

Here's a breakdown of the annual salary of members, officers and officials of the House. Salaries have not gone up since 2009, CRS notes.

Speaker of the House: $223,500

Majority and Minority Leaders: $193,400

All other Representatives (including Delegates and Resident Commissioner from Puerto Rico): $174,000

Chief Administrative Officer: $172,500

Clerk of the House: $172,500

Sergeant at Arms: $172,500

Chaplain: $172,500

Legislative Counsel: $172,500

Law Revision Counsel: $172,500

Parliamentarian: $172,500

Inspector General: $172,500

Director, Interparliamentary Affairs: $172,500

General Counsel to the House: $172,500

Here's a breakdown of the annual salary of members, officers and officials of the Senate:

President pro tempore: $193,400

Majority and Minority Leaders: $193,400

All other Senators: $174,000

Secretary of the Senate: $172,500

Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper: $172,500

Legislative Counsel: $172,500

Legal Counsel: $172,500

Parliamentarian: $171,315

Chaplain: $160,787

Not all members of Congress are accepting pay during the shutdown. More than 70 say they're refusing their salaries while the stalemate continues, CNN reports, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts).

She tweeted on January 1 that she would be donating her salary to HIAS, a nonprofit that helps refugees.

And Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas tweeted on January 10 that he couldn't "in good conscience get paid while federal employees' financial futures hang in the balance because of this partial government shutdown.

I've asked the Chief Administrative Officer to withhold my pay until we have come to an agreement to adequately fund border security."

--01-17-19: us.cnn.com/2019/01/16/economy/shutdown-long-term-economic-impact/index.html  
Washington (CNN Business) — None of the 21 government shutdowns since 1976 made a real dent in the economy — purchases were simply delayed until the government re-opened and federal workers regained their lost wages.

This time is already different.

Businesses are warning investors that the nearly month-long shutdown has taken a chunk out of revenues that they might never recoup, like the $25 million that Delta Airlines lost because of fewer bookings than anticipated in February.

"We've been watching the actual effects, and noticing that the impact that we see on government contractors is bigger than the sort of staff rule of thumb anticipated," White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Kevin Hassett said Tuesday.

"And we subsequently, right now, think that it's about a tenth of a percent a week, not a tenth of a percent every two weeks."

This shutdown comes at a time when consumers and businesses were already starting to worry about a downturn on the horizon, and government dysfunction makes everyone more risk averse.

"I don't think it's an impact of people who are missing paychecks," says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors. "It's more about people becoming more uncertain about the direction of the economy, this perception that there's chaos in Washington."

In response to a survey the association conducted last week, 25% of realtors said the government shutdown had dissuaded their clients from buying homes, either because of delays in getting financing through non-functioning government agencies or because of general concern about the economic environment.

That's a higher number than it's been during previous federal funding gaps. Historically, Yun says, 2% of buyers ultimately have dropped out of the market — but this time he expects the losses to be higher, at a time when purchases have already been depressed by rising interest rates and low inventory.

In order to keep delayed paychecks from turning into lost sales, some businesses are offering low-cost financing programs to federal employees, counting on their income being backfilled within a few weeks.

Some auto dealers in the hard-hit Washington, DC area, for example, are letting their government customers pay later for service work. READ MORE…

--01-17-19: us.cnn.com/2019/01/17/politics/donald-trump-shutdown-nancy-pelosi-economy/index.html
(CNN) — If the government shutdown lasts much longer, President Donald Trump's only way out may involve a choice between two pillars of his political viability -- his border wall and his purring economy.

More and more Americans are feeling the effects of the partial shutdown every day, from travelers stuck in security lines to Coast Guard officers now joining the hundreds of thousands of federal employees going without pay.

Yet the normal political pressure points that usually end shutdown standoffs are not working, perhaps because of the unique dynamics of the Trump era. As a result, there's every chance that the stalemate now in its 27th day could drag on much longer.

Trump told supporters on Tuesday, for example, "We're going to stay out for a long time if we have to."
Sen. John Kennedy, who flew on Air Force One with the President on Monday, said Trump is adamant that he's not budging.

"He is a carnivore -- and on this one he believes he is right," the Louisiana Republican said.

In another sign the impasse could be extended, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked the President to move the day of the State of the Union address -- now set for January 29 -- or deliver it in writing because of overstretched security agencies.

A White House official familiar with preparations told CNN's Jim Acosta Wednesday night that, "at this point," Trump still plans to deliver the speech as scheduled on January 29.

Shutdowns usually end when either side, the President or Congress, begins to feel unbearable pressure and the cost of going on outweighs the political damage sustained by a climbdown.

Since that pivot point is not yet at hand, longer-term factors may come into play. One significant pressure point could be the side effects of the shutdown on economic growth, unemployment and consumer confidence.

If the standoff over the President's demand that Democrats provide $5.7 billion in wall funding is prolonged, the chances of genuine damage to the economy -- one of the unarguable hot spots of Trump's presidency -- rise significantly.

Kevin Hassett, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, has warned that the impact of the shutdown on government contractors is higher than expected and could significantly shave growth figures.

"We subsequently, right now, think that it's about a tenth of a percent a week, not a tenth of a percent every two weeks," Hassett told reporters on Tuesday.

His comment was intended to pile pressure on Democrats on Capitol Hill to give in to Trump's demands. But it also served to underline the risk to the President, who arguably has more at stake over the economy than Democrats.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on Wednesday called the shutdown a "self-inflicted wound" and "negative" for the economy.

The shutdown is coming at the worst time for the economy

Trump rarely misses a chance to celebrate historically low unemployment numbers and strong growth figures.

Good economic indicators will be crucial to his hopes of re-election and could blunt Democratic attacks next year as he seeks to retain Midwestern industrial states that paved his way to the White House.

So if the economic damage from the shutdown starts to add up, it could begin to weigh much more heavily on Trump's political calculations.

--01-16-19: www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ann-coulter-trump-%E2%80%98is-dead-in-the-water-if-he-doesn%E2%80%99t-build-that-wall-%E2%80%93%E2%80%93-dead-dead-dead%E2%80%99/ar-BBSiEUQ?ocid=U147DHP

WHO THE HELL CARES WHAT THIS CRAZED WOMAN SAYS…???
Ann Coulter spoke with Vice News in an interview that aired tonight, and once again she said that a lot is riding on President Donald Trump actually building the border wall.

The current government shutdown and fight over a wall has been blamed in part on the President listening to Coulter and other commentators who were criticizing him for appearing to cave.

Coulter said tonight she cares more about drugs coming across the border “more than I care about the Yosemite gift shop being open.”

And Trump is digging in now, she added, because “he is dead in the water if he doesn’t build that wall––dead, dead, dead.

--01-17-19: www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/us/politics/how-tariffs-work-china.html  
President Trump frequently promotes the idea that when the United States places a tariff on an import from another country, that other country directly pays the bill.

He’s wrong, but he keeps saying it.

“Billions of dollars will soon be pouring into our Treasury from taxes that China is paying for us,” Mr. Trump said during a news conference earlier this month. On Thursday, he wrote something similar on Twitter:

That tweet raises a question. Are the tariffs being charged to China, or to companies? It’s a good starting point for a sort of F.A.Q. on tariffs that could be useful for executives, voters, even presidents. (For explanatory purposes, The New York Times is supplying both the questions and the answers below.)

Q. So who gets “charged” for tariffs? A foreign government? An American company that manufacturers goods overseas, then sells those goods in the United States?

A. Neither of them, technically speaking. When the United States puts a tariff on a Chinese import, it does not send a bill to China. If an American company manufactures a good elsewhere and it is subjected to a tariff, the company doesn’t typically get a bill from the government, either.

Then who pays?
Usually a middleman, to start. Most American companies that bring products in from abroad do not handle the paperwork themselves.

They hire what’s known as an importer of record — someone whose job it is to navigate the intricacies of the United States Customs and Border Protection’s system for inspecting imports and levying any duties on them. (Duties are a tax or fee placed on an import. Tariffs are a form of duty.)

When an imported good enters a port in the United States, the importer of record initially gets the bill for the tariff.

So tariffs are a tax on middlemen?
Not usually. This is where the question of who pays tariffs gets trickier — because middlemen tend to pass on their costs.

A company that contracts with an importer will almost always see the costs of that contract rise after a tariff has been imposed on goods it imports.

So now the company is paying, say, 10 or 25 percent more to bring in the exact same product it imported before the tariffs. The company faces a choice: What should it do about those extra costs?

So tariff costs get passed to an American company. What are its options?

The company could pass on the added costs to consumers, in the form of higher prices.

That’s the simplest route, particularly in a competitive market where the supply chain is not easily moved. (Washing machines are a good example of this. Their prices rose in the United States earlier this year after Mr. Trump’s administration imposed tariffs on them.)

Companies can also try to minimize tariffs by switching suppliers or changing the products they sell. In the case of China tariffs, that could mean moving a factory from Beijing to Vietnam.

In this case, no one pays the tariffs; the company is making an end-run around them.

Alternatively, an American company could negotiate concessions from a Chinese supplier, likely by threatening to shift production.

In that case, the Chinese supplier’s profits would fall, and it would bear at least some of the cost of the tariffs. Some research suggests American companies have had success essentially passing the bill back to China.

Some companies may choose to absorb the extra costs themselves, by accepting lower profits.

They choose neither to raise prices nor immediately pay to shift production, based on the idea that the most economically efficient price to charge for the product is not changed by the existence of tariffs.

That could be the case with Apple: It can charge such a premium for iPhones that it might decide to accept smaller profit margins on them for a while, if they become subject to tariffs.

How does China end up paying?

It never does, directly.

But there are certainly ways that American tariffs hurt China. If companies move production to Vietnam, China would see less economic growth — though that itself is not a direct benefit for American production, and in the short term would be a headache for companies that have to find new factories.

Chinese companies forced to cut costs could have their profits pinched and could reduce hiring or close entirely. That could put pressure on them to move to places like Vietnam.

Another way China could lose: Americans may buy fewer Chinese goods as the prices rise. That’s a loss for China, but it’s also a tax on Americans who buy things.

The United States government is not “charging” China or the American people. But, in many ways, Americans are paying the costs anyway.

But someone is paying tariffs, right? Where does that money go?

To the United States government. Mr. Trump appears correct that his tariff increases are bringing “billions” of dollars into federal coffers:

Revenue from tariffs exceeded $5.5 billion in October, according to the Treasury Department, up from $3.2 billion in October 2017.

That’s a 40 percent gain. But even over the course of a year, it isn’t nearly enough to counter the sharp increases in the federal budget deficit that Mr. Trump has overseen.

***01-19-18: www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gen-z-pew-research-poll_us_5c40de74e4b027c3bbbf5c04

 JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING DONALD & THE GOP DOES = MOVES MORE OF THESE YOUTH TOWARDS THE DEMOCRATS…
America’s youngest generation is growing up with political views similar to those of the millennials who precede them, according to a new poll, which found Generation Z to be diverse, left-leaning and largely hostile toward President Donald Trump.

The Republican Party “now has a TWO generation problem,” GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson wrote on Twitter. “I am often asked if the pendulum will swing back and if Gen Z might actually be more right-leaning than the Obama-era Millennials. Current verdict: no.”

That data comes via a new report from Pew Research, which defines millennials as those born from 1981 to 1996 and Generation Z as those born after that. Under those definitions, the 2020 election will see a crop of Gen Z voters ages 18 to 23.

So far, according to Pew, today’s teenagers and youngest adults look pretty similar to the millennials now in their mid-20s to 30s ― and notably distinct from older generations.

Just 30 percent of Gen Zers ages 13 to 21 and a nearly identical 29 percent of millennials surveyed said they approve of Trump’s job performance.

About 60 percent of both groups said they agree that increasing racial and ethnic diversity is good for society.

Members of Gen Z stand out for their support for more government: 70 percent of those polled said the government should do more to solve problems, compared with 64 percent of millennials and 53 percent or fewer of older Americans.

Young Republicans look especially different from older members of their party.

About half of Gen Z Republicans surveyed said they believe the government should be doing more, while just 38 percent of millennial Republicans and a third or fewer of older GOP generations agreed.

Forty-three percent of Gen Z Republicans said that black Americans are treated less fairly than whites; only 30 percent of millennial Republicans and fewer than a quarter of older Republicans said the same.

Demography, of course, isn’t necessarily destiny. The GOP also faced prematurely dire claims about the party’s future after the 2012 presidential election. Young Americans’ opinions will have an effect on politics only to the extent they turn out to vote.
There’s also time for opinions to shift.

“It’s too early to say with certainty how the views of this new generation will evolve,” the report’s authors note. “Most have yet to reach voting age, and their outlook could be altered considerably by changing national conditions, world events or technological innovations.” READ MORE…