Here’s a remarkable detail about the present government shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security prepared a “to whom it may concern” letter to employees to forward to their creditors. It essentially asks banks, credit card companies and any other creditors to take pity on their employees who can’t cover their debt obligations while they are not being paid. The letter concludes by thanking creditors “for your patience and compassion towards our employees during this time.” Read More
This is a good article on Trump’s ties to Russia. It’s not about collusion per se or really anything that happened during the 2016 election. It’s about the backstory, things that happened as far back as the 1990s. If you’ve read up on this subject, a lot will be familiar. But Michael Hirsch has added some new reporting about the backstory and the what congressional investigators who get started next month are going to be interested in. More than anything he does a good job of weaving together all the disparate elements of the story.
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Earlier this month, Tierney Sneed reported from Washington, D.C.’s federal courthouse that staff were “doing everything they could” to “make sure a secret case believed to be related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe stayed secret.”
We still don’t know much about that legal dispute, beyond that an unknown foreign company is fighting (and has been losing its attempts) to quash a subpoena which may come from Mueller.
But, Tierney Sneed reports this morning, the case has arrived at the Supreme Court. Read more here.
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.