With Christmas and New Year’s upon us, I thought I would give some book recommendations. As always a few caveats and explanations about my criteria. I almost never read political books or any books about the contemporary world. I read history almost exclusively and usually at least a few centuries in the past. My criteria are deeply subjective. The books I recommend ones that held my attention to the end (most don’t), books I found engrossing and from which I learned new things. A number of the books below I’ve recommended before. Others are new. Read More
North Carolina election officials asked feds to indict accused vote fraudster Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. more than a year ago. But nothing happened.
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A few readers asked whether the government shutdown might shut down the Special Counsel’s Office and whether this might even be one of the President Trump’s motivation. It turns out, no, it does not. The overwhelming majority of Justice Department officials remain on the job during a shutdown as “essential personnel”. That includes the Special Counsel’s Office, whose employees remain on the job.
Unsurprisingly, according to CNN, President Trump twice chewed out his Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker for not doing more to control prosecutors in the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office. This happened first when Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress at the end of November and then again a week later when prosecutors implicated President Trump in a number of felonies.
“Pointing to articles he said supported his position, Trump pressed Whitaker on why more wasn’t being done to control prosecutors in New York who brought the charges in the first place, suggesting they were going rogue.” Read More
The Senate has in the last few minutes pressed pause on any further votes on government funding or the border wall until the White House and congressional leaders agree on some kind of global deal.
A design of our Steel Slat Barrier which is totally effective while at the same time beautiful! pic.twitter.com/sGltXh0cu9
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 21, 2018
It’s telling that no one on the Republican side wants to take any more votes until they know what President Trump will sign.
To be clear, that’s not significant progress. A shutdown still looms. A deal is not in sight.
You remember all the smoke about Jerry Falwell Jr for some inexplicable reason going into the divey, boozy youth hostel business with a young pool attendant in South Florida and the fact that Michael Cohen somehow also happened to have some kind of relationship with Falwell. At least one outlet has picked up this new article on the case by Aram Roston at Buzzfeed and claimed it says Michael Cohen brokered the deal. That’s definitely not what it says. Not close. But it certainly seems clear that Roston thinks that’s where this is going. And I bet he’s right.
One of the most characteristic qualities of the Trump era is the deep-seated uncertainty. We talk a lot about the endemic chaos and unpredictability that President Trump seems to thrive on. But I mean something different. Most Presidents usually act in relatively predictable ways based on a more or less known set of basic beliefs and policy goals. The Trump White House operates very, very differently. Read More
President Trump makes everything so binary, everything so black and white, that there is an inevitable tendency to lionize anyone who goes into opposition to him. That is a tendency worth resisting, as much with out-going Secretary Mattis as with anyone else. I’m trying to resist over-interpreting his resignation letter. But it doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation. The critical passage in my mind comes here …
