I watched the Sunday morning shows — 4 of them! — after shunning them for years, and I can boil them down for you.

The most interesting thing was this bizarre malfunction from Nancy Pelosi:



The boil-down is easy: Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a completely political event, where there are constitutionally defined powers that will be exercised to their utmost. Nothing more is needed, and nothing can be done about it, and each party will do what the other party would do if the roles were reversed. And that's the same thing they did in 2016 after Justice Scalia died.

Good morning! Sunday morning! See ya!

Isn't it to Trump's credit that only 3 have died in the National Parks during the shutdown?

The anti-Trumpism of The Washington Post is on display in "Three dead in national parks as shutdown wears on":

Three days after most of the federal workforce was furloughed on Dec. 21, a 14-year-old girl fell 700 feet to her death at the Horseshoe Bend Overlook, part of the Glen Canyon Recreation Area in Arizona. The following day, Christmas, a man died at Yosemite National Park in California after suffering a head injury in a fall. On Dec. 27, a woman was killed by a falling tree at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which straddles the borders of North Carolina and Tennessee.

It's not as if a federal worker would have been there to catch them. What is even the theoretical connection between the shutdown and these fatal falls?

The deaths follow a decision by Trump administration officials to leave the scenic — but sometimes deadly — parks open even as the Interior Department has halted most of its operations. During previous extended shutdowns, the National Park Service barred access to many of its sites across the nation.

Oh, I see. If only the parks were closed, they wouldn't have been there at all. This would argue in favor of permanently closing all the national parks because if people go there, they might die. But the real argument, thinly veiled, is that if only the parks were closed (like in past shutdowns), the shutdown would affect a lot of real people who could be shown complaining about their wrecked vacation.

Is it news that Trump's wall is not a wall made out of concrete?

I'm trying to read "Kelly, on His Way Out, Says Administration Long Ago Abandoned Idea of Concrete Wall" by Maggie Haberman in the NYT.

The concrete border wall that President Trump has repeatedly called for as a signature campaign promise...

What? Trump has been repeatedly calling for a "concrete" wall? I thought he'd been saying all along that it needs to be see-through and couldn't be a solidly opaque wall. The word "concrete" is ambiguous. Is the NYT using it to mean the opposite of "abstract" or does it mean (as I assume) the building material, the stuff poured from cement trucks?

Let me start again. I reject the premise of this story, that Trumpsters have been picturing a certain type of wall, with a particular material.

The concrete border wall that President Trump has repeatedly called for as a signature campaign promise is not actually a wall...

Not actually a wall? What does that mean? What is "a wall"? What does it mean to be "actually a wall"?

... and has not been since “early on in the administration,” the outgoing White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, said in an interview published on Sunday....

“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Mr. Kelly told The Los Angeles Times.

Well, in the negotiations over funding the barrier at the border, the terminology matters, because everyone wants to win. If you can get the thing built by stopping saying "wall" and by declaring that Trump didn't get the "wall" he promised, then which side won?

Mr. Kelly, whose last day in his role is Monday, said he had sought advice from Customs and Border Protection officials early in 2017, when he was the homeland security secretary. Mr. Kelly said he was told that “we need a physical barrier in certain places, we need technology across the board, and we need more people.”

He went on: “The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”

See what I mean? Kelly isn't telling me something I didn't already know, and I think Trump supporters who have been paying attention will not be surprised. Is Kelly hurting Trump by talking like that? I don't think so, because he's giving Democrats cover. I think Trump is trying to offer that cover. Can we all get on the same page and say there needs to be a barrier across the whole southern border, with the nature of that barrier based on good design attuned to the conditions at every point?

UPDATE: Here's Trump himself, tweeting:

An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED, as has been reported by the media. Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!

"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 & President who would approve!"

Tweets Trump this morning.

And here's a related tweet I'm noticing this morning:

This is outrageous. Federal employees don’t go to work wearing red or blue jerseys. They’re public servants. And the President is treating them like poker chips at one of his failed casinos. https://t.co/bxkt67E9Bq

— Mark Warner (@MarkWarner) December 27, 2018

I'm thinking: Because the people I want blamed won't get blamed.

I'm reading "Why the blame game over the government shutdown is pointless" by Dylan Scott (at Vox). Let's see what he actually says:

So Trump, despite seeming eager just a few days earlier to take credit for a shutdown and precipitating the crisis by threatening to veto a spending bill, is pointing his finger at the Democrats.... It sure sounds like the president is shutting down the government, and let’s not forget he just got done saying that was what he wanted to do....

Under President Barack Obama, every spending deadline seemed to require at least a momentary crisis.... This is just the way Washington works. Impending deadlines are the best motivators to compel Congress to act....

[T]he government, as most Americans understand and experience it, will still be running tomorrow, whatever the headlines might say. So you’re free, as Trump and Democrats in Congress surely will, to point fingers. But at this point, most Americans don’t have much reason to take notice. 

"Unlike my colleagues, I’ve been a bemused spectator during this week’s Syria follies."

Writes Andrew C. McCarthy at The National Review.

When ISIS arose and gobbled up territory, beheading some inhabitants and enslaving the rest, Obama began sending in small increments of troops to help our “moderate” allies fend them off. But the moderates are mostly impotent; they need the jihadists, whether they are fighting rival jihadists or Assad. Syria remains a multi-front conflict in which one “axis” of America’s enemies, Assad-Iran-Russia, is pitted against another cabal of America’s enemies, the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda factions; both sides flit between fighting against and attempting to co-opt ISIS, another U.S. enemy. The fighting may go on for years; the prize the winner gets is . . . Syria (if it’s the Russians, they’ll wish they were back in Afghanistan)....

If we stayed out of the way, America’s enemies would continue killing each other. That’s fine by me. I am not indifferent to collateral human suffering, but it is a staple of sharia-supremacist societies.... We should hit terrorist sanctuaries wherever we find them, but it is not necessary to have thousands of American troops on the ground everyplace such sanctuaries might take root....

When we look a little deeper, though, we see why Americans will no longer support Washington’s incoherent Middle East adventurism. When we made our arrangements with the Kurds, we knew the backbone of their fighting forces was the PKK, which the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization....

I hold no brief for Trump on Syria... But I find it remarkable that... congressional critics never paused, ever so slightly, over the fact that the troops they want the president to keep in Syria were never authorized by Congress to be in Syria....  Obama did not seek congressional authorization for combat operations in Syria because Congress would have refused. And Congress does not want any president to ask for authorization because members do not want to be accountable — they want to go on cable TV and whine that whoever is president has been heedless, whether for going in or for pulling out....

ADDED: Here's "Good Riddance to America’s Syria Policy/As usual, Donald Trump has done the right thing in the wrong way" by Harvard international relations professor Stephen M. Walt (in Foreign Policy).

Instead of obsessing about who is supposedly “winning” and who is supposedly “losing,” the United States should start by identifying its core strategic interests....

What if the remnants of the Islamic State manage to reconstitute themselves, regain some territory, and sponsor new terrorist attacks abroad? Such a development is obviously undesirable, but the danger does not justify keeping U.S. troops in Syria for another one, two, or five years. The ideology of a group like the Islamic State is not eradicated by bombs, drones, artillery shells, or bullets, and the idea of violent resistance can live on even if every member alive today is killed or captured. The ultimate protection against such groups is not an open-ended American commitment but rather the creation of effective local governments and institutions. Legitimate and effective local authority is not something the United States can provide, however; its presence in such places may even be counterproductive. After all, the Islamic State’s ideological message rests in part on opposition to foreign interference, and it has long used the U.S. presence in the region as a recruiting tool. Getting out of Syria won’t neutralize that message right away, but it could make the group less persuasive over time.

Moreover, despite its fearsome image and the hype its brutal tactics have received, the Islamic State was never an existential threat to the United States....

"Not one cent of our taxpayer money should be wasted on this absurd monument to Trump's racism and ignorance. It's revolting..."

"... to think that House Republicans can pull $5 billion out of thin air for this hateful vanity project, but immediately turn into hard-nosed misers should we dare to spend our money on something that actually matters and helps Americans, such as healthcare, education, or infrastructure. Go ahead, Donald, shut it down. You own it."

Writes a commenter with over 3,000 up-votes on the NYT article "Government Shuts Down as Talks Fail to Break Impasse."

From the article:

While the president has been unwilling to consider dropping his demand to fund his signature campaign promise, Mr. Pence and other White House officials were discussing a number of potential compromises that would force him to do just that, omitting spending on a wall and instead adding money for other security measures at the border, according to several officials with knowledge of the talks.

Late Friday, as his budget director ordered the carrying out of shutdown plans, President Trump told the country in a video on Twitter that “we’re going to have a shutdown.”

Here's that video:

OUR GREAT COUNTRY MUST HAVE BORDER SECURITY! pic.twitter.com/ZGcYygMf3a

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 22, 2018

Trump is pushing for the "nuclear option" to get his border wall.

This morning's tweet storm (click to enlarge and clarify). The top one says: "Thank you @SteveDaines for being willing to go with the so-called nuclear option in order to win on DESPERATELY NEEDED Border Security! Have my total support."

"House Republican caucus was thrown into chaos Thursday as conservatives revolted against a funding bill that includes no new money for President Donald Trump’s border wall."

"On the brink of a Christmastime shutdown, House Speaker Paul Ryan is confronting resistance from rank-and-file Republicans, who have begun personally egging on Trump to force a shutdown over the wall."

Politico reports.

"We have other ways to get to that $5 billion... At the end of the day, we don’t want to shut down the government, we want to shut down the border."

"There’s certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use that we can couple with the money that would be given through congressional appropriations that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our borders."

Said Sarah Huckabee Sanders this morning.

"Some of the strongest advocates for the bill and conservative reform seem to be those with personal connections to the criminal-justice system."

"Much of the public and private heavy lifting in building support for the bill has been done by Jared Kushner, who made a rare appearance on Sean Hannity’s show to promote it and is reportedly responsible for securing an endorsement of the bill from Fox News. Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, spent over a year in federal prison after being convicted for white-collar crimes, in 2005."

From "The Improbable Success of a Criminal-Justice-Reform Bill Under Trump" (The New Yorker).

"Congressional Republicans are getting ready for hell. Axios has obtained a spreadsheet that's circulated through Republican circles on and off Capitol Hill..."

"... including at least one leadership office — that meticulously previews the investigations Democrats will likely launch if they flip the House."

It sounds worse as a generality than if you read the itemization:

• President Trump’s tax returns
• Trump family businesses — and whether they comply with the Constitution's emoluments clause, including the Chinese trademark grant to the Trump Organization
• Trump's dealings with Russia, including the president's preparation for his meeting with Vladimir Putin
• The payment to Stephanie Clifford — a.k.a. Stormy Daniels
• James Comey's firing
• Trump's firing of U.S. attorneys
• Trump's proposed transgender ban for the military
• Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's business dealings
• White House staff's personal email use
• Cabinet secretary travel, office expenses, and other misused perks
• Discussion of classified information at Mar-a-Lago
• Jared Kushner's ethics law compliance
• Dismissal of members of the EPA board of scientific counselors
• The travel ban
• Family separation policy
• Hurricane response in Puerto Rico
• Election security and hacking attempts
• White House security clearances

"Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) said Wednesday that he will vote to confirm President Trump's nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel."

"Why it matters: Several Republicans and outside groups were hoping they could get Manchin, a red-state Democrat, to fold on Haspel because, with his support, Haspel will go to the floor as a bipartisan nominee."

Reports Axios.

Manchin's statement (via CNN): "I have found Gina Haspel to be a person of great character. Over her 33 year career as a CIA operations officer, she has worked in some of the most dangerous corners of our world and I have the utmost respect for the sacrifices she has made for our country. She has earned the trust of her colleagues in the intelligence community and her intellect, steady temperament, vast knowledge of threats we face, and dedication to our country are undeniable. These attributes make her supremely qualified to serve as our next CIA Director."

I thought we were going to have an uproar about torture. How did that wither away into nothingness?

In the NYT "Daily" podcast recently, the host Michael Barbaro said flatly that Trump does not have the power to fire Mueller...

... so it's interesting to see an op-ed in the Times today, "Of Course Trump Can Fire Mueller. He Shouldn’t." It's by lawprofs John Yoo and Saikrishna Prakash (and I'm not going to look at the comments to see what I assume is a lot of negativity toward Yoo).

It's hard to link to something I remember hearing in a podcast, but I think it was this episode. I was disheartened to hear Barbaro — whom I like a lot and consider unusually sober and fair — present what is a difficult legal question as if it had a known and agreed-upon answer and to imply that Trump was deceitful or ignorant to claim the power to fire Mueller.

Yoo and Prakash lay out the other side of the question, the side that favors greater Executive Power:

[C]ritics insist that Mr. Mueller enjoys protection under Justice Department regulations, which provide that the special counsel may be “removed from office only by the personal action of the attorney general” for “misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause.”

According to this view, Mr. Trump must convince Rod Rosenstein, the acting attorney general, to fire Mr. Mueller. If Mr. Rosenstein refuses, Mr. Trump can fire him and replace him with someone willing to do the dirty work. Alternatively, the president could order Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has recused himself from the Mueller probe, to rescind the regulations, which date back to 1999, and then fire Mr. Mueller.

But this narrow view of the president’s options rests on a misunderstanding of basic constitutional principles. Ever since the founding, presidents, Congresses and the Supreme Court have recognized that the chief executive has constitutional power to remove executive officers....

A regulation issued by the Justice Department should not be read to limit the president’s constitutional power to remove officers....

Congress is considering a bill that would purport to protect Mueller from firing, but even assuming that did become a statute, it would be subordinate to the Constitution, which gives the President the power to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." There is Supreme Court case law on that subject  — Morrison v. Olson (1988), about the now-defunct independent counsel law (Congress's answer to Watergate).  It's hard to picture Morrison v. Olson getting overruled, but that's not the issue unless and until Congress passes the bill (and wouldn't Trump veto it? Perhaps not!).

By the way the Yoo and Prakash title — "Of Course Trump Can Fire Mueller. He Shouldn’t" — reminds me of the great old Nixon quote: "We can do that - but it would be wrong."

Metaphorical thinking about the secret House memo.

I'm reading Axios. Boldface added:

The coming release of a secret House memo, hotly sought by conservatives, will intensify the great muddying of the Russia investigation in the public's mind.

Why the memo matters: Trump's allies are betting that when all is said and done — and when special counsel Bob Mueller has completed his report — the American people will be so thoroughly disgusted with everyone that the political outcome is a wash.

I have been flooded with email from conservatives who have been ignited by the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign that has flourished online, fed by Fox News.

That smoldering fire ignited yesterday after the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release the memo, with the final decision up to President Trump....

Last night, I saw how hot the House was burning when I interviewed Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat....

The first metaphor is "muddying." The memo isn't making anything clear, just part of a strategy to disorient and confuse.

The second metaphor is water. There's a "flood" and maybe all the confusing mud will just be resolved by declaring the whole thing "a wash."

Third, there is fire, and that's just political fervor. The water could take care of the fire as well as the mud.

When did we start using "wash" like that, to mean "A balanced outcome; a situation or result which is of no net gain or loss"? The OED has that meaning only as a draft addition. It calls it "U.S. colloq." with the first usage in 1976:

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 10 Apr. 5/4 If Humphrey were the more Democratic nominee, it would be more or less of a wash, because Humphrey is an old Washington hand too, and he carries many of the same scars as Ford.

By the way, did you know the word "wash" can refer to a measure for oysters and whelks? "Each smack takes about 40 wash of whelks with her for the voyage" (1879). What's a "smack"? Some kind of woman? No, the "her" is for a ship — "A single-masted sailing-vessel, fore-and-aft rigged like a sloop or cutter, and usually of light burden, chiefly employed as a coaster or for fishing, and formerly as a tender to a ship of war."

Oh, the things we are learning today. I'm so glad I have existing tags for "mud" and "mollusks."

Shutdown-blame update.

This seems like a not-great poll for Democrats, who had a larger edge on the shutdown-blame question last week.

They may have started out with the more sympathetic position, but I'm not sure they've had the stronger messaging. Could use more polls, though. https://t.co/7zE4XBX12O

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 22, 2018

AND: "Senate Votes Overwhelmingly to End Government Shutdown" (NYT).

"If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!"

Great to see how hard Republicans are fighting for our Military and Safety at the Border. The Dems just want illegal immigrants to pour into our nation unchecked. If stalemate continues, Republicans should go to 51% (Nuclear Option) and vote on real, long term budget, no C.R.’s!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 21, 2018

ADDED: I'm trying to read the NYT article on the shutdown, "Bitter Bickering Muddies the Path to Ending the Government Shutdown."

The immediate cause of the shutdown, which began at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked consideration of a House-passed stopgap measure, was a dispute over spending. But it was a stalemate over immigration policy, the topic that propelled Mr. Trump’s political rise and has dominated his first 12 months as president, that snarled the negotiations, as the president vacillated over what approach he should take and advisers including Mr. Kelly counseled a harder line.

Wait. The immediate cause of the shutdown was... Senate Democrats blocked consideration of a House-passed stopgap measure. What's all that other material?! The Democrats blocked the vote that would have avoided the shutdown. That's clear, and one answer is, go to majority voting so this chaos isn't inflicted on us. Or is the shutdown just political theater that doesn't really mean anything?

Is Larry Tribe trying to talk like Trump?

#TrumpShutdown is accurate. #SchumerShutdown isn’t. Maybe think of it as #TrumpShitdown!

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) January 20, 2018

ADDED: Is it a coincidence that #TrumpShitdown and "Shitty Media Men" are happening at the same time?

"How Trump and Schumer Came Close to a Deal Over Cheeseburgers."

Do I have to talk about the "government shutdown"? I don't want to supply any audience for this political theater, so I'm just selecting one headline that I like. That's from the NYT.

Excerpt:

The negotiations between Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer, fellow New Yorkers who have known each other for years, began when the president called Mr. Schumer on Friday morning.... In a lengthy phone conversation, both men agreed to seek a permanent spending deal.... Less than an hour later, Mr. Schumer was meeting with Mr. Trump over cheeseburgers in the president’s study next to the Oval Office....

As the meal progressed, an outline of an agreement was struck, according to one person familiar with the discussion: Mr. Schumer said yes to higher levels for military spending and discussed the possibility of fully funding the president’s wall on the southern border with Mexico. In exchange, the president agreed to support legalizing young immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.....

“In my heart, I thought we might have a deal tonight,” Mr. Schumer recalled later.... As the evening wore on, Mr. Schumer got a call from Mr. Kelly that dashed all hopes....

“What happened to the President Trump who asked us to come up with a deal and promised to take the heat for it?” Mr. Schumer asked on the Senate floor. “What happened to that President Trump?”

He's the same President Trump, the deal artist who touches your heart and then leaves you crying and wondering what went wrong.

The "stable genius" stomps all over the Trump-is-stupid-and-crazy narrative by running a meeting in front of the cameras.

I'll call him a table genius. Look at him, with members of Congress arrayed around him at that table. The news media had to keep the cameras running live. After spending the last week promoting the theory that he's stupid and crazy, the media look stupid and crazy, as he's clearly in command, speaking coherently, behaving competently, and getting full respect from the members of Congress. This really was a perfect response the barrage of criticism that bounced off Michael Wolff's convenient-but-fake book:



For comparison, here's Michael Wolff squirming under questioning from Norah O'Donnell (who smiles sunnily as she goes for the jugular):



NOTE: This is a post I'd originally put up at 5:56 this morning, but it got deleted somehow, not intentionally.