Week of January 1st, 2018

Week of January 1st, 2018

I can't recall the number of times in 2017 I thought that I was experiencing the most insane, unprecedented day/week/period of political news since I first learned how to manically pound F5 on /r/politics.  The bar has been raised once again this week.

General Politics

In which I highlight news stories that do not directly involve the Russia investigation or the hypnotic dumpster fire that is Trump's Twitter account.

Gerrymandering

First up are reports that Trump has chosen Thomas Brunell to lead the 2020 Census effort.  Brunell is a partisan political science professor from UT Dallas who has testified repeatedly in support of Republican redistricting efforts which violate federal racial gerrymandering laws.  From another related article:

The deputy director of the Census Bureau has historically been a nonpartisan career civil servant. Brunell, a registered Republican, has no prior government experience and a deeply partisan background. He has testified or produced expert reports for Republicans in more than a dozen redistricting cases and has defended new voting restrictions passed by Republicans. His 2008 book, Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America, argued that extreme partisan gerrymandering should be the norm because, he claimed, ultra-safe blue or red districts offered better representation for voters than competitive ones.

We'll be returning to the topic of gerrymandering frequently as the Wisconsin case (soft paywall - recommend opening in incognito window in Chrome) is set to appear before the Supreme Court this year.  Fivethirtyeight is running a very informative podcast series on the topic.

Gerrymandering is, like everything else, much much more complicated than you would think until you start to dig deep on it.  It's easy to make the argument that gerrymandering is bad and that all political districts should be drawn fairly, but it's shockingly difficult in practice.  But what are the reasonable arguments supporting political gerrymandering?

Marijuana

Attorney General Jeff Sessions' ill-advised private war against doobage has taken a bold step.  The Department of Justice has rescinded an Obama-era policy that blocks the federal government from prosecuting marijuana trade in states which have legalized recreational usage.

Backlash has been swift and fierce, even from fellow Republicans like Sen. Cory Gardner (R - CO), whose state has enjoyed massive financial benefits since legalizing three years ago.  Gardner has threatened to block Justice Department nominations in retaliation.

I've never been a big believer in states' rights, which all too often feel like a justification to allow people to do horrible things if enough of them get together in one place.  But I find it frustrating how defenders of the states' rights party suddenly forget their battle cry when they want to stop people from doing something they don't approve of.  Bazooka ownership: States' rights.  Smoke a joint: Rot in prison you commie hippie fucktard.  Why is this hypocrisy acceptable?

The Voter Fraud Commission

Donald Trump's pet Voter Fraud Commission, which he created to investigate his claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2016 Presidential Election, has been quietly disbanded after failing to find evidence that millions of people voted illegally in California, robbing him of a landslide popular vote victory.  The failure was blamed on multiple states' refusal to provide private voter data to the commission, headed by Vice President Mike Pence and Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State responsible for some of the country's most severe voter ID laws.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D - NY), the junior Senator from New York and prospective 2020 presidential candidate, is raising the alarm concerning the potential nomination of Geoffrey Berman to permanently fill the post of U.S. Attorney for Manhattan.

Berman was personally interviewed by President Trump for the position, a highly unusual and possibly inappropriate occurrence.  The post would make Berman, a member of Trump's transition team, the top federal prosecutor over a jurisdiction which includes Trump's home and offices.  Given the severity of the legal challenges the President is facing, appointing a loyal U.S. Attorney to a position that is likely to be prosecuting him is difficult to accept.

White House Cell Phone Ban

Ok, it's a bit of dumpster fire gossip, sure.  But the word on the street is that Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly has implemented a ban on cell phones among White House staffers.  I hope nobody's kid swallows an eraser in kindergarten.  The administration has been obsessed with leaks, but one official assured the press that the ban has more to do with the number of devices on the White House wireless network.  Seriously.

The Tweetage

So, I had been thinking that a whimsical romp through a few of Trump's more absurd tweets would be a fun bit.  Holy shit did I choose the right week to start!

I truly thought the highlight of this inaugural segment would be Trump's Christmas Day tweet:

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas, then tomorrow it’s back to work in order to Make America Great Again (which is happening faster than anyone anticipated)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 25, 2017

And then he played golf for the next seven days in a row at his West Palm Beach course.

This, of course, is the man who repeatedly criticized President Obama for playing golf.  Since his inauguration he has visited his golf clubs 88 times (CNN has it at 92, but they are deep state libtards) and likely played 76 rounds of golf.  It's difficult to be sure, because Trump and his spokespersons constantly lie about it.

There's a delightful saga concerning the attempts to block CNN from filming his golf outings by obscuring their cameras first with a large white van, and later by planting trees in the way.

But then Tuesday happened.  Ah, Tuesday.  It started out so predictably:

Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

Former Attorney General Sally Yates summed it up very well.

As I frequently work with airline safety data, I was very pleased to see mainstream coverage of the safest year of commercial air travel in history.  And then Trump took credit for it:

Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were Zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

This was worth a good giggle at work.  But he was just getting warmed up that day:

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018

Yes.  I know.  You've heard all about it.  You've seen it before.  But just let it wash over you one more time.  Let it sink in.  This is the President of the United States of America.  The same position held by Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Millard Fillmore.  And he's taunting the batshit crazy leader of North Korea on Twitter.  There is no high school bullying metaphor absurd enough to capture the depths to which we have sunk as a nation.

Feuer und Wut

The book.  Oh, the book.  It would have been a busy and exciting week even in the absence of the book.  But, then the book happened.

Michael Wolff, a journalist infamous for his biography of Rupert Murdoch, is releasing a book titled Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.  The book is based upon interviews with Trump and numerous staff members.  Wolff, inexplicably, was granted access to the west wing while conducting research.

It began with just a trickle on Wednesday.

An excerpt from the book quoted former chief strategist Steve Bannon describing the Trump Tower meeting between Don Jr. and Russians as "treasonous" and "unpatriotic."

Bannon, speaking to author Michael Wolff, warned that the investigation into alleged collusion with the Kremlin will focus on money laundering and predicted: “They’re going to crack Don Junior like an egg on national TV.”

Just as this story began to get traction, another excerpt was released, quoting Bannon as suggesting that Trump likely knew about the meeting with Russians.

“The chance that Don. Jr did not walk these Jumos up to his father’s office on the 26th floor is zero," the excerpt reads.

President Trump wasted no time in personally dictating a response.

“When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind,” Trump said in a statement issued after the publication of excerpts of a new book in which Bannon criticizes the president and his family. “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.”

Then the flood gates opened.  An endless stream of face-palms spewed forth, including Rupert Murdoch adding his name to the list of people who have reportedly referred to the President of the United States as a fucking idiot.  The book describes everyone on the Trump team being stunned in horror at their victory on election night, and Melania crying not tears of joy.  It reports that Flynn was cautioned against taking $45,000 from the Russians for a speech, but was confident it would not be a problem since they wouldn't win the election.  There's just so much.  It's all insane.

By the next morning, Trump's attorneys had sent cease and desist letters to both Steve Bannon and the publishers of the book, in an attempt to block publication.

Shockingly, it didn't work, and the release date of the book was moved from January 9th to January 5th.

Now, I am quite certain that President Trump had never heard of the Streisand Effect.  I'm quite certain he still hasn't.  But his reaction pushed the book to the top of every pre-order list conceived by man.  By the time anyone reads this, the book will have been released.  I expect everything in this post to be dated and dull by morning.

Red Dawn

I can't believe it's taken me this long just to get to the Russia investigation.

The week started out slow.  Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, filed lawsuits against Mueller, Rosenstein, the Department of Justice, his cat, and pretty much everyone else in DC.

“The lawsuit is frivolous but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants,” a Justice Department spokeswoman said. 

In other luke warm news, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are threatening to publish a minority report detailing Republican attempts to hinder the Russia investigation.  I wouldn't expect anything remotely surprising to come out of such a report, but at least it would be entered into the congressional record.

But just when I thought there wouldn't be anything exciting on the Russia front this week, a new bombshell dropped late Thursday claiming that President Trump directed White House lawyer Don McGahn to prevent Attorney General Jeff Sessions from recusing himself from the Russia investigation.

I highly recommend reading the full New York Times article.  I've tried to summarize it, but there's just too much that's worth reading first hand.

Now, let there be colloquy!!