Think Progress: Trump Hasn’t Been Sworn in Yet, but He’s Already Done With ‘Drain the Swamp’

By Aaron Rupar:

There’s good reason Trump might want to distance himself from the slogan — it should be impossible for him to utter “drain the swamp” with a straight face these days given what he’s done since November 8.

One of Trump’s first actions as president-elect was to stuff his transition team full of lobbyists and Wall Street veterans. He did that despite saying in June that “if I am elected President, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.” and then the next month saying “I don’t want lobbyists, I don’t want special interests.” In October, spokeswoman Hope Hicks bragged to the Wall Street Journal about how registered lobbyists weren’t raising money for Trump. But Trump’s relationship to lobbyists changed almost immediately after he became president-elect.

Being rich isn’t the same as being corrupt, but it’s hard to insist you’re serious about ushering in a different way of doing business in Washington when your cabinet is the richest in history, with a combined wealth of well over $9.5 billion — greater than that of one-third of U.S. households combined. Not only are Trump’s choices rich, but they’re also well-connected insiders, with secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson currently working as CEO of oil and gas giant ExxonMobil and treasury secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin having worked as a banker at Goldman Sachs. Mnuchin later become owner and chairman of OneWest bank, an institution that was described as a “foreclosure machine” by the California Reinvestment Coalition.

Trump’s pick of Goldman Sachs executive Gary Cohn as his director of the National Economic Council had some Trump supporters crying foul before November was even through.

The Full Story (December 21, 2016)

Talking Points Memo: Trump Suggests Attacks In Europe Validate His Proposed Muslim Ban

By Matt Shuham:

While speaking to reporters outside his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump was asked whether attacks in Europe and the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey this week had caused him to re-evaluate his previous proposals to create a Muslim registry or ban Muslim immigration to the U.S.

“You know my plans," he replied, without getting into specifics. "All along, I’ve been proven to be right. One hundred percent correct. What’s happening is disgraceful."

Trump did not contest in that response that he had plans for a Muslim registry, as he did in November of last year, even though his spokesman Jason Miller issued a statement last month saying that the President-elect “has never advocated for any registry or system that tracks individuals based on their religion, and to imply otherwise is completely false.”

The Full Story (December 21, 2016)

Talking Points Memo: Friedman Even Worse Than I Thought

By Josh Marshall:

I already realized that US Ambassador to Israel nominee David Friedman, in addition to supporting the worst and most violent elements in Israeli society, is in fact a terrible person. But I didn't know how far he'd gone in prostituting the Holocaust in the service of his friend and client Donald Trump.

In his latest column in Haaretz column Peter Beinart digs up this quote ....

October 20, 2016: “While the revelation of Mr. Trump’s demeaning comments caught on tape some 11 years ago brought him, as one would expect, widespread negative attention, The New York Times ran with the story with all the journalistic integrity of the worst gossip rag. If only the Times had reported on the Nazi death camps with the same fervor as its failed last-minute attempt to conjure up alleged victims of Donald Trump, imagine how many lives could have been saved.”
I did not realize you could leverage the Holocaust and the 6 million Jewish victims as a cudgel to defend a man caught on tape bragging about 'grabbing' women by their 'pussies' and coercing sex. But you can. David Friedman did. And he'll be our next Ambassador to Israel.

The Full Story (December 20, 2016)

[Special] New York: Why Trump Keeps Making Up Lies About His Refugee Ban

By Jonathan Chait:

Possibly the most interesting defense is that the administration was unable to use the normal interagency review process because it would have tipped off the terrorists. “What we couldn’t do was telegraph our position ahead of time to ensure that people flooded in before that happened, before it went into place,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer. “If we had telegraphed that ahead of time, then that would have been a massive security problem.”

* * *
This defense suffers from two enormous flaws. First, it assumes that allowing agencies tasked with security to have input on a policy would be tantamount to publicizing the policy. The president is supposed to be able to discuss plans in confidence without assuming they will be leaked immediately. That is how the federal government works. If the only way to announce a foreign-policy move was to keep new policies a closely guarded secret within the administration, then this kind of amateurism would be standard. There is a long record of American presidents announcing surprise foreign policy decisions that were planned in advance by officials other than a speechwriter in his early 30s and a Breitbart lunatic.

The second problem with this defense is that it assumes terrorists were sitting around the world, planning to enter the United States to launch an attack, and able to enter at any time, but lacking any special urgency. (Perhaps they were waiting for the fares to drop.) An announcement of one week’s notice would have given them just the motivation they needed to hop on a plane.

This bears no relation to reality. People from the countries banned by Trump already face an extensive, 20-step vetting process that can take up to two years. None of them could have legally made it through within a week, or anything close.

And once you realize this, it becomes clear that Trump’s policy was not only bungled in its implementation but conceptually flawed. Trump originally proposed a “Muslim ban.” But he had to back away from this policy given that it is both unconstitutional and transparently unenforceable (how do you prevent a terrorist from lying about his religion?). This forced Trump to relabel his policy “extreme vetting.” But the reality is that vetting is already extreme. Trump has not identified any weak points in the vetting procedure. Indeed, there is no connection whatsoever between his policy and any terror incidents in the United States. Radicalized domestic American terrorists have all come from countries not on Trump’s list. His policy grows out of a need to take some kind of action.

In a way, it makes perfect sense that he would skip the normal interagency review — input from security experts would only reveal that Trump’s plan has no relationship to any security objective. The purpose of this policy is to retroactively justify Trump’s campaign fearmongering.

The Full Story (January 30, 2017)

Washington Post: Trump’s OMB Pick Seems Poised to Ignite a Worldwide Financial Crisis

By Catherine Rampell:

Whatever their differences on line-item details, though, Mulvaney and the president-elect have at least one major thing in common: an alarming openness to defaulting on the federal debt.

As you may recall, during the campaign Trump repeatedly flirted with the idea of defaulting on U.S. debt obligations. In a CNBC interview in May, he suggested that his experience in offloading private debt would translate nicely to federal obligations. That is, he’d simply persuade the country’s creditors to accept less than full payment.

“I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed you could make a deal,” he said.

When the financial press freaked out, he walked back the language — only to revive it a month later.

Mulvaney has also questioned the need to preserve the country’s sterling reputation as a borrower.

The Full Story (December 20, 2016)

See also.

Politico: Gingrich [Says] Congress Should Change Ethics Laws for Trump

By Darren Samuelsohn:

Trump is currently grappling with how to sufficiently disentangle himself from his multibillion-dollar business to avoid conflicts of interest with his incoming administration, and the president-elect has already pushed back a promised announcement of an ethics firewall.

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and one-time potential running mate for Trump, says Trump should push Congress for legislation that accounts for a billionaire businessman in the White House.

“We’ve never seen this kind of wealth in the White House, and so traditional rules don’t work,” Gingrich said Monday during an appearance on NPR’s "The Diane Rehm Show" about the president-elect’s business interests. “We’re going to have to think up a whole new approach.”

And should someone in the Trump administration cross the line, Gingrich has a potential answer for that too.

“In the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He also has, frankly, the power of the pardon,” Gingrich said. “It’s a totally open power. He could simply say, ‘Look, I want them to be my advisers. I pardon them if anyone finds them to have behaved against the rules. Period. Technically, under the Constitution, he has that level of authority.”

The Full Story (December 19, 2016)

Think Progress: Under Political Pressure, Kuwait Cancels Major Event at Four Seasons, Switches to Trump’s D.C. Hotel

By Judd Legum:

A source tells ThinkProgress that the Kuwaiti embassy, which has regularly held the event at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, abruptly canceled its reservation after members of the Trump Organization pressured the ambassador to hold the event at the hotel owned by the president-elect. The source, who has direct knowledge of the arrangements between the hotels and the embassy, spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly. ThinkProgress was also able to review documentary evidence confirming the source’s account.

In the early fall, the Kuwaiti Embassy signed a contract with the Four Seasons. But after the election, members of the Trump Organization contacted the Ambassador of Kuwait, Salem Al-Sabah, and encouraged him to move his event to Trump’s D.C. hotel, the source said.

In a phone conversation on Tuesday, Ambassador Al-Sabah confirmed that the National Day event will be held at the Trump International Hotel. Al-Sabah also acknowledged that, prior to the election, the event was scheduled at the Four Seasons, an arrangement he described as a “save the date,” rather than a contract.

The Full Story (December 19, 2016)

Washington Post: On New York’s Fifth Avenue, Trump’s White House North

By Paul Schwartzman:

On most days, crowds of tourists, rank-and-file New Yorkers and candidates seeking jobs with the new administration endure a maze of checkpoints, barricades and police command posts on the traffic-choked streets that bound Trump Tower.

* * *

Protecting Trump during his transition is costing New York taxpayers upward of $500,000 a day, a price that has triggered no small amount of outrage from Mayor Bill de Blasio and prompted one city lawmaker to politely urge the president-elect to decamp to another one of his properties, perhaps in Florida.

An overwhelming majority of New York City voters rejected Trump’s candidacy, and many grouse at the prospect of their city becoming his presidential backdrop. But Cindy Adams, a New York Post gossip columnist and longtime Trump friend, said she would understand if he preferred his home town to Washington, which she dismissed as overpopulated by fashion-challenged lawmakers who wear “plastic shoes with rubber soles.”

“The White House is smaller than where he’s used to living,” Adams said. “He doesn’t even have a proper ballroom there. You get 11 people into the Red Room and it’s crowded.”

The Full Story (December 18, 2016)

[Special] Editorial: Trump's Refugee Ban Explodes Upon Impact

President Trump signed an executive order which created a, to use the vernacular, shitstorm. Per CNN (1):

President Donald Trump's seismic move to ban more than 218 million people from the United States and to deny entry to all refugees reverberated worldwide Saturday, as chaos and confusion rippled through US airports, American law enforcement agencies and foreign countries trying to grasp Washington's new policy.

Trump's executive order bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspends the admission of all refugees for 120 days.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed an appeal on behalf of two individuals held in limbo at JFK International Airport, and a federal Judge issued a stay against some portions of the ban.  As Mother Jones explains (2), the stay is temporary but it has stopped people from being deported for the time being.

Although the executive order only targets certain countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen), the executive order included a religious test which specifically favored Christians (3), and as the Washington Post revealed, Rudolph Giuliani said, "So when [Trump] first announced it, he said, 'Muslim ban.' He called me up. He said, 'Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.'"(4)

National Security experts thought the move was harmful to the U.S. Via Mother Jones:(5)

"Not only is it immoral and stupid, it's also counterproductive," says Patrick Skinner, a former CIA counterterrorism case officer who now works at the Soufan Group, a security consulting firm. "We've got military, intelligence, and diplomatic personnel on the ground right now in Syria, Libya, and Iraq who are working side by side with the people, embedded in combat, and training and advising. At no time in the US's history have we depended more on local—and I mean local—partnerships for counterterrorism. We need people in Al Bab, Syria; we depend on people in a certain part of eastern Mosul, Iraq; in Cert, Libya. At the exact moment we need them most, we're telling these people, 'Get screwed.'"

Kirk W. Johnson, who spent a year on the reconstruction in Fallujah in Iraq with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), echoes Skinner's fears: "This will have immediate national security implications, in that we are not going to be able to recruit people to help us right now, and people are not going to step forward to help us in any future wars if this is our stance."

The move also led to a series of protests in cities and at airports across the country.(6) This is the second weekend of protests against Trump, and as a reminder, he has only been president for nine days. Despite these unprecedented level of mass protests against the President, GOP leaders are still supporting him.(7) As documented in The Atlantic:

Washington Post: Washington’s Most Exclusive Meeting May Lose its Luster Under Trump

By Greg Jaffe:

Now it looks as if the [Presidential Daily Briefing]’s status as Washington’s most indispensable briefing could be coming to an end. “I get it when I need it,” said President-elect Donald Trump, who so far is taking the PDB only a few times a week. “I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t need to be told the same thing and the same words every single day for the next eight years.”


Those remarks have set off fears that Trump could miss a critical piece of intelligence and raised bigger questions about the president-elect’s attention span and interest in foreign policy. Some Democrats have expressed alarm at Trump’s decision not to sit through the PDB each morning with his staff members. “I think it is totally irresponsible in a post-9/11 world,” said Derek Chollet, a former senior official in the Obama administration. “It is a kind of malpractice.”

The Full Story (December 18, 2016)

[Special] New York Times: Rocky First Weekend for Trump Troubles Even His Top Aides

By Peter Baker, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman:

To the extent that there was a plan to take advantage of the first days of his administration, when a president is usually at his maximum leverage, Mr. Trump threw it aside with a decision to lash out about crowd sizes at his swearing in and to rewrite the history of his dealings with intelligence agencies.

The lack of discipline troubled even senior members of Mr. Trump’s circle, some of whom had urged him not to indulge his simmering resentment at what he saw as unfair news coverage. Instead, Mr. Trump chose to listen to other aides who shared his outrage and desire to punch back. By the end of the weekend, he and his team were scrambling to get back on script.

* * *

Mr. Trump grew increasingly angry on Inauguration Day after reading a series of Twitter messages pointing out that the size of his inaugural crowd did not rival that of Mr. Obama’s in 2009. But he spent his Friday night in a whirlwind of celebration and affirmation. When he awoke on Saturday morning, after his first night in the Executive Mansion, the glow was gone, several people close to him said, and the new president was filled anew with a sense of injury.

The Full Story (January 22, 2017)

Washington Post: Trump is Stoking His Base on his Pre-inaugural Tour. But is he Building Bridges?

By Philip Rucker and John Wagner:

Rather than projecting inclusiveness and striving to heal the wounds from the bitter election, as past presidents-elect have done, Trump has traveled on his “USA Thank You Tour” only to states he turned red on election night. He has whipped up his massive crowds, and they in turn have displayed their allegiance — a powerful reminder to members of Congress that it could be politically dangerous to cross him.

“It’s a movement,” Trump declared in Mobile. “Don’t forget, they didn’t know you existed until Election Day — and then they said, ‘Where the hell did all those people come from?’ ”

As Trump assembles his administration and prepares to govern, he has continued the divisive rhetoric and showmanship of his campaign. He has mocked his opponents, sneered at the media and trumpeted his electoral feats. To the nearly 54 percent of voters who cast ballots for someone else, Trump’s message has been, in short: Get on board or get left behind.

Trump’s tone in the run-up to his Jan. 20 inauguration poses a challenge as he seeks to govern a deeply divided nation and build popular support for his policies. And as he tries to pivot from a rollicking campaign, Trump is struggling to tame the army of passionate followers he has playfully called “wild beasts.”

The Full Story (December 17, 2016)

New York Times: What Donald Trump Doesn’t Know About Black People

By Michael Eric Dyson:

“I would be a president for all of the people, African-Americans, the inner cities,” President-elect Trump declared during the second presidential debate. “Devastating what’s happening to our inner cities,” he lamented. “You go into the inner cities and — you see it’s 45 percent poverty. African-Americans now 45 percent poverty in the inner cities.”

Mr. Trump’s views on black people, poverty and cities were quickly challenged as myopic and ill informed. But the administration he is building is emblematic of his ignorance.

The only African-American member of his designated cabinet is Ben Carson, who was tapped for Housing and Urban Development. Mr. Carson was a beloved American icon, a man who endured a hardscrabble childhood in Detroit to become a famous physician. But his turn to right-wing petulance, with a bow to kooky comparisons of Obamacare to slavery, considerably soiled his reputation. If his story was once emblematic of beating the odds to become a success, he is now a different kind of symbol — of how little Mr. Trump knows, or cares, about African-Americans.

Similarly, his pick of Senator Jeff Sessions as his attorney general — a man who according to testimony before Congress once joked that the only problem with the K.K.K. was the group’s drug use, deemed a white lawyer with black clients a race traitor and dismissed civil rights groups as “un-American” — proves Mr. Trump cares little for the interests of the African-American citizens he will serve in the Oval Office.

Haaretz: David Friedman, Trump's Radical-right Ambassador, Makes Netanyahu Look Like a J Street Lefty

By Chemi Shalev:

Friedman has expressed opinions that are considered radical even in today's more right-wing Israel. He opposes a two-state solution, supports settlements and advocates annexation, has denigrated President Obama as an anti-Semite, questioned the citizenship of Israeli Arabs, compared J Street to Holocaust-era kapos and so on. It is good that he will be coming with diplomatic immunity: For some of his articles and statements, Friedman could get arrested by the Israeli police on suspicion of incitement.

Friedman's appointment would seem to confirm Bennett's initial jubilation following Trump's election: This is not an ambassador that the US administration would send if it had any plans whatsoever to advance the peace process. This is an ambassador who will please Evangelicals, delight Jewish settlers and bring pleasure to the Land of Israel zealots far and wide. In many ways, Friedman will seem like a turbo-charged Ron Dermer, courting the extreme right in his host country while shunning all the rest. It will upset many Israelis, including, possibly, Netanyahu himself. The prime minister is always concerned about his right-wing flank than his opponent on the left: The last thing he needs is a US ambassador who supports his most feared rivals.

The Full Story (December 16, 2016)*

*updated December 18, 2016

Rolling Stone: The Vampire Squid Occupies Trump's White House

By Matt Taibbi:

One surprise election result and a mountain of jubilant #draintheswamp hashtags later, Donald Trump has filled his White House with, you guessed it, Goldman veterans.

His chief strategist, the unabashed white-supremacist loon Steve Bannon, is a former Goldman banker, as is adviser Anthony Scaramucci. Steve Mnuchin marks the fourth Goldman-pedigreed treasury secretary in the last four presidencies, after Bob Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Hank Paulson.

But the real shocker is the recent appointment of Goldman Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to the post of director of the National Economic Council. Bannon and Mnuchin were former, past Goldmanites. Cohn, meanwhile, is undoubtedly at least the number-two figure at the world's most despised bank, if not the outright co-head with Blankfein. He has been at the center of many of its most infamous episodes, including the Greek affair.

So much for draining the swamp.

The Full Story (December 16, 2016)

Brookings: The Emoluments Clause - Its text, meaning, and application to Donald J. Trump

By Norman Eisen, Richard Painter, and Laurence H. Tribe

While much has changed since 1789, certain premises of politics and human nature have held steady. One of those truths is that private financial interests can subtly sway even the most virtuous leaders. As careful students of history, the Framers were painfully aware that entanglements between American officials and foreign powers could pose a creeping, insidious risk to the Republic. The Emoluments Clause was forged of their hard-won wisdom. It is no relic of a bygone era, but rather an expression of insight into the nature of the human condition and the preconditions of self-governance.

Now in 2016, when there is overwhelming evidence that a foreign power has indeed meddled in our political system, adherence to the strict prohibition on foreign government presents and emoluments “of any kind whatever” is even more important for our national security and independence.

Never in American history has a president-elect presented more conflict of interest questions and foreign entanglements than Donald Trump. Given the vast and global scope of Trump’s business interests, many of which remain shrouded in secrecy, we cannot predict the full gamut of legal and constitutional challenges that lie ahead. But one violation, of constitutional magnitude, will run from the instant that Mr. Trump swears he will “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” While holding office, Mr. Trump will receive—by virtue of his continued interest in the Trump Organization and his stake in hundreds of other entities—a steady stream of monetary and other benefits from foreign powers and their agents.

The Full Story (December 16, 2016)

Washington Post: Trump Needs to Get Over His Victory

By Ruth Marcus:

One surprise election result and a mountain of jubilant #draintheswamp hashtags later, Donald Trump has filled his White House with, you guessed it, Goldman veterans.

His chief strategist, the unabashed white-supremacist loon Steve Bannon, is a former Goldman banker, as is adviser Anthony Scaramucci. Steve Mnuchin marks the fourth Goldman-pedigreed treasury secretary in the last four presidencies, after Bob Rubin, Lawrence Summers and Hank Paulson.

But the real shocker is the recent appointment of Goldman Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to the post of director of the National Economic Council. Bannon and Mnuchin were former, past Goldmanites. Cohn, meanwhile, is undoubtedly at least the number-two figure at the world's most despised bank, if not the outright co-head with Blankfein. He has been at the center of many of its most infamous episodes, including the Greek affair.

So much for draining the swamp.

The Full Story (December 16, 2016)

Tax Policy Center: Repealing the Affordable Care Act Would Cut Taxes For High Income Households, Raise Taxes For Many Others

By Howard Gleckman:

Repealing the Affordable Care Act would cut taxes significantly for the highest income one percent of US households, according to a new Tax Policy Center analysis. At the same time, it would raise taxes on average for low- and moderate-income households.

The ACA includes several different tax provisions. On one side of the ledger is the large refundable tax credit that subsidizes insurance premiums for many people who buy coverage on the ACA’s health exchange. On the other side: tax increases designed to both raise revenue and encourage the purchase of adequate—but not excessive--insurance. They include a penalty tax for individuals without adequate insurance, an excise tax on employers with 50 or more workers who offer insufficient coverage, and the so-called Cadillac tax on generous employer-sponsored health benefits. The law also created two extra taxes on high-income individuals--a 0.9 percent payroll surtax on earnings and a 3.8 percent tax on net investment income for individuals with incomes exceeding $200,000 ($250,000 for couples).

Overall, dumping all the ACA taxes would cut taxes by an average of $180 per household in 2017—a 0.3 increase in after-tax incomes. Of course, taxes are not the only measure of people’s well-being. A new analysis by the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center estimates that eliminating the law without adopting a replacement could increase the number of people without insurance by more than 29 million, putting them at risk for out-of-pocket medical costs that would far exceed any tax savings.

The Full Story (December 15, 2016)

CNN: Trump's Commerce Secretary Pick Backed Romney's '47%' Comments

By Jeremy Diamond:

Wilbur Ross, the billionaire investor whom Trump tapped late last month to lead the Commerce Department, backed Romney's damaging comments in a September 2012 interview with Indian TV station NDTV, according to video provided to CNN by the liberal research group American Bridge.

"I assume you are aware that he's correct. About 50% of Americans do not in fact pay any tax -- period," Ross said after the interviewer asked Ross if he agreed with Romney's comments. "Whether it's good politics or not is a different question, I'm not qualified to judge that. But it is an accurate statement."

Ross also argued in the 2012 interview that "a very high percentage of the unemployed people claim disabilities so that they can get more money."

He added that "40-some-odd percent of the ones who claim disability claim sudden mental disability."

Ross added: "So there's a lot of nonsense that goes on within the social programs."

While nearly 47% of Americans did not pay any federal income tax around the time of Romney's statement, according to a 2011 finding by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, Romney did not just cite a statistic. Instead, the 2012 Republican nominee said at a private fundraiser that nearly half of Americans would vote for his opponent President Barack Obama because they depend on the government and believe they are "victims."

The Full Story (December 15, 2016)

Washington Post: The Eternal Mystique of Goldman Sachs

By Dan Zak:

Throughout 2016, Donald Trump hammered Hillary Clinton for giving paid, closed-door speeches to Goldman Sachs, and he spat its name like it was the embodiment of evil. Goldman Sachs has “total control” over Clinton, he charged again and again.


And now? Trump has plucked his treasury secretary from Goldman. Trump’s senior adviser is a former Goldman guy. On Monday, Trump officially named his choice for director of the National Economic Council: the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn.

The Full Story (December 14, 2016)

Think Progress: Faith Leaders Decry Trump’s ‘Cabinet of Bigotry’

By Jack Jenkins:

The group plans to present Congressional leadership with a petition signed by 2,500 religious leaders denouncing Trump’s list of cabinet picks and asking lawmakers to reject them.

“[We reject] Steve Bannon, formerly led the far-right website Breitbart News, which has ceaselessly promoted racist, sexist, antiSemitic and homophobic rhetoric that degrades the human dignity of millions of Americans,” the petition reads. “In the coming days, our prayer is that you call on President-elect Trump to reject these white supremacists and appoint advisers who understand that forging a more tolerant, united and inclusive America is the best way forward.”

Trump is also facing religious opposition within his own party. Last week, a Republican member of the Electoral College vowed to vote for someone other than Trump on December 19, a decision he told ThinkProgress was rooted in his Catholic faith. Meanwhile, many conservative Mormons remain unimpressed with the business mogul’s bombastic demeanor and rhetoric, as do some white evangelical Christian leaders such as Russell Moore.

The Full Story (December 14, 2016)

Talking Points Memo: Federal Agency Warns Trump He Must Give Up DC Hotel Before Inauguration

By Allegra Kirkland:

The President-elect has been warned by federal authorities that he will be in breach of a government lease if he does not revoke ownership of his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. before Inauguration Day, Democratic lawmakers revealed Wednesday.

The contract between the Trump Organization and the General Services Administration, which owns the federal building in which the luxury hotel is housed, explicitly states that no elected U.S. official may have a say in or benefit from the lease for that property. As lawmakers noted in a letter to the GSA administrator first flagged by Buzzfeed News, Trump and his team have been informed that he will violate the terms of the lease as soon as he is sworn into office. “The Deputy [GSA] Commissioner made clear that Mr. Trump must divest himself not only of managerial control, but of all ownership interest as well,” Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Gerald Connolly (D-VA), and Andre Carson (D-IN) wrote in the letter. If Trump refuses to do so, the letter states he would be given 30 days to address the issue, then be brought before a civilian tribunal that negotiates disputes involving federal agencies.

The Full Story (December 14, 2016)

Washington Post: 5 Things Donald Trump Promised He’d Do, But Hasn’t

By Aaron Blake:

A plan to defeat the Islamic State, or ISIS

May 2015: “All I can tell you it is a foolproof way of winning, and I’m not talking about what some people would say, but it is a foolproof way of winning the war with ISIS.”

June 2015: “The problem with politics is if I tell you right now, everyone else is going to say, 'Wow, what a great idea.' You're going to have 10 candidates go and use it, and they're going to forget where it came from, which is me. But no, I have an absolute way of defeating ISIS.”

By August, Trump delivered a speech on radical Islamist terrorism that his website bills as “Donald Trump’s Detailed Plan to Defeat ISIS.” But the speech didn't include all that much detail concerning the Islamic State, specifically. And a month later, Trump pulled a 180, saying he would go to the military generals and have them assemble a plan in his first 30 days in office.

By late September, Conway said there was still a plan: “He certainly has a plan. I've heard it.”

We still don't know what that plan is. Trump has said he doesn't want to telegraph too much. But it's not clear whether his “foolproof” plan is the operable one, or whether he'll defer to the generals.

The Full Story (December 13, 2016)

[Special] Editor's Note: The Future of Temple of Trump

With Donnie T sworn in as the new president, I want to share what the future holds for this blog. Originally, this started to document the GOP's nutty presidential candidate, and I did not expect for him to win and be given the keys to the United States. Indeed, fatigue began to set in following the election, as more and more nonsense and shenanigans continued to flood the news cycle.

Nevertheless, even if I am the only soul to ever read these words, I want to continue to document the coverage of Trump's White House. I have a backlog of about one month's worth of articles, just because I like to see what patterns emerge and to make sure I do not share something that becomes debunked within days of its original publication. Also, frankly, there is just so much information out there, it is not always easy to digest and distribute in a timely manner. Of course, if something of true importance emerges, I am always willing to publish it early as a "Special" post. Overall, the blog will continue to document press coverage of our new president. It is important to follow along.

Trump has assembled one of the worst cabinets in history, with people like Ben Carson and Betsy DeVos (should they be confirmed) being wholly unqualified and incapable of running the departments of which they will be in charge (but still getting Republican approval; never forget this). We also have an administration with deep ties to Russia, most likely through business interests (from Manafort to Flynn, there is a long history of Russian ties within the Trump circle). Trump will be the most pro-Russian president since the era of the Tsar. So while Trump molds foreign policy and works to dismantle alliances (such as NATO) in favor of Russian interests, his cabinet will help destabilize America from within. When Trump leaves office (in 4 or 8 years, barring impeachment or resignation), he and his family will have profited vastly from the grift and graft they are known for while the country will be in such a poor state it may take an entire generation before we recover.

It's not as fun living in the final days of Rome. Yet, here we are. Never give up.

[Special] Talking Points Memo: Really, Really Unpopular

By Josh Marshall:

On the last full day of the Obama presidency and on the eve of President-Elect Trump's inauguration, let's look at where the new President starts in the public's estimation. The answer is, Trump is really unpopular and has gotten more unpopular as the transition has gone on.

We have some new numbers.

• CNN: 40% 
• Gallup: 44% 
• ABC/WAPO: 37% 
• Quinnipiac: 37% 
• CBS: 37%

[Editor: Marshall added in a later post: "We have another approval number out tonight, this one from Fox News of all places. Donald Trump's approval number is 37%. 54% disapprove." Emphasis mine.]

These are dramatically lower numbers than any president in modern polling history. For benchmarks, CNN had Obama at 84% approval, Clinton 67% and Bush at 61% at inauguration. The best comparison here is probably to Bush who lost the popular vote and won in a highly controversial way. Much of what would have been the transition period was eaten up by the recount. Even here, Bush is 20 points higher than Trump.

The Full Story (January 19, 2017)

[Special] Washington Post: Trump Will Take Office as Least Popular President in at Least 4 Decades

By Dan Balz and Scott Clement:

After a tumultuous campaign and transition, President-elect Donald Trump will take the oath of office Friday as the least popular incoming president in at least four decades, but a majority of Americans nevertheless express optimism that he will be able to fulfill campaign pledges to boost the economy and deal with threats of terrorism, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Amid controversy and calls for additional investigations into possible Russian interference in the election, most Americans disapprove of Trump’s response to the hacking and other activities. But they are divided on the question of whether the president-elect has been too friendly toward Russia or taken the right approach in his public comments and posture.

On ethical matters, a bare majority say the steps Trump and his attorney outlined last week to turn over control of his sprawling business enterprise to his children create adequate separation while he serves as president. But the public is split almost evenly on whether he and his family are fully complying with federal ethics laws, and an overwhelming majority say he should release his federal tax returns, which he has long declined to do.

The Full Story (January 17, 2017)

[Special] Gallup: Approval of Trump Transition Still Low as Inauguration Nears

By Lydia Saad:

In Gallup polling conducted two weeks before Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump continues to garner historically low approval for his transition performance, with 51% of Americans disapproving of how he is handling the presidential transition and 44% approving. Last month, the public was split on this question, with 48% approving and 48% disapproving.

Trump's 48% transition approval rating in December was already the lowest for any presidential transition Gallup has measured, starting with Bill Clinton's in 1992-1993. Trump's current rating only further separates him from his predecessors -- particularly Barack Obama, who earned 83% approval for his handling of the transition process in January 2009, up from 75% in mid-December 2008.

* * *

The last president before Trump to win the election despite losing the national popular vote was George W. Bush in 2000. However, while Bush's transition scores were lower than those of both his predecessor (Clinton) and his successor (Obama), his 61% approval rating in mid-January 2001 was nowhere near as low as Trump's is today.

The Full Story (January 13, 2017)

[Special] Washington Post: This is the Most Ominous Inauguration Day in Modern History

By E.J. Dionne Jr.:

Yet the dread Trump inspires is about far more than obnoxious tweets — and, by the way, the media and everyone else will have to figure out when Trumpian tweets are important and when they are distractions from far more urgent matters.

Trump’s disdain for the democratic disposition we like our presidents to embrace was on display when he dressed down CNN’s Jim Acosta at that news conference last week. Trump’s tone, style and sheer rage (whether real or staged) brought to mind authoritarian leaders who brook no dissent.

Speaking of autocrats, Vladimir Putin’s engagement in American politics on Trump’s behalf continued Tuesday when he called reports that Trump had been compromised by Russian intelligence “total nonsense” designed to “undermine the legitimacy” of Trump’s presidency. Putin accused those spreading the information of being “worse than prostitutes,” adding: “They have no moral boundaries.”

You know we are entering a strange time when Putin, many of whose enemies wind up dead, is lecturing Americans about “moral boundaries.” Then again, Putin must have been grateful when Trump told the Times of London recently that he still considers NATO “obsolete.” Wrecking both NATO and the European Union, which Trump also demeaned, are central Putin objectives.

We still do not know exactly what ties Trump and his enterprises have to various Russian interests because he won’t disclose basic financial information, including his tax returns, as his predecessors did.

The Full Story (January 18, 2017)

[Special] Betsy DeVos, Trump's Nominee for Secretary of Education

Elizabeth "Betsy" DeVos, Trump's pick to run the Education Department, made headlines for suggesting students need guns to defend against possible concerns over...not terrorists, not sexual predators, not crazed psychopaths, but bear attacks, had some other deeply troubling aspects of her performance during her Senate hearing. Like Dr. Ben Carson, she has zero knowledge, experience, or qualifications to lead the department she will likely lead. Lest history believe that this should fall all on Trump (and bear responsibility he should), let it be remembered that Republicans are the ones who will push her through. In the future, when the Trump presidency inevitably falls apart due to corruption and ethical violations, and his popularity plunges below 30%, Republicans will try to distance themselves, but it will be up to us, the people, to force them to bear the cross for their "sins" as well.

Information about Ms. DeVos below the jump.

[Special] Team Trump, A Failure of Ethics

Thanks to the independent reporting of the Washington Post, there have been a few recent stories and editorials highlighting the grift and graft that Donald Trump has built a legacy on:

• Airplanes, Golf Courses, Trademarks and More - Trump’s Government Will Oversee His Businesses by Rosalind S. Helderman, Drew Harwell and Tom Hamburger (January 15, 2017): 

Airplanes belonging to Donald Trump’s businesses will be inspected over the next four years by employees of the Federal Aviation Administration that he will lead.

Disputes over Trump’s trademark registrations could be reviewed by judges appointed by his hand-picked commerce secretary. His Department of Housing and Urban Development could reverse its past opposition to a potentially lucrative sale of a large subsidized housing complex in New York partly owned by the president-elect. And Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency will have the power to roll back clean-water rules he and other golf course owners have said are harmful to their industry.

When Trump takes office on Friday, he will assume control of a federal bureaucracy with enormous power to bolster nearly every corner of his real estate, licensing and merchandising empire — and enhance his personal fortune.

• Trump Cabinet Nominees Meet Growing Ethical Questions by Karen Tumulty, John Wagner and Ed O'Keefe (January 18, 2017)

The most serious concerns surround personal investments by Trump’s health and human services nominee, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), in health-care firms that benefited from legislation that he was pushing at the time.

Additionally, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), Trump’s choice to head the Office of Management and Budget, has acknowledged during his confirmation process that he failed to pay more than $15,000 in state and federal employment taxes for a household employee.

And Commerce Department nominee Wilbur Ross revealed that one of the “dozen or so” housekeepers he has hired since 2009 was undocumented, which he said he discovered only recently. The employee was fired as a result, he added.

All of those are the kinds of problems that have torpedoed nominees in the past. But it is far from certain — or even likely — that any of Trump’s nominees will buckle under the political pressure.

That is in part because the ­president-elect himself has broken so many norms — notably, by flouting the convention of major-party presidential candidates making their tax returns public and by refusing to sever himself from his financial interests while he is in the White House.

[Special] Mick Mulvaney, Trump's Selection to Head Office of Management and Budget

Here is what you need to know about John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney, a man with a nickname that has nothing to do with either of his three actual names:

• Washington Post: Trump Names Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Fiscal Hawk, to Head Budget Office by Abby Phillip (December 17, 2016)

Mulvaney, 49, was elected to Congress in 2010 in the wave that brought a cohort of younger, staunchly conservative members into the House. Mulvaney quickly staked out ground as one of Congress’s most outspoken fiscal hawks — playing a key role in the 2011 showdown between President Obama and House Republicans that ended in the passage of strict budget caps.

• New York Times: In Mick Mulvaney, Trump Finds Anti-Establishment Leader for Budget Office by Jennifer Steinhauer and Michael D. Shear (December 17, 2016) 

Mr. Mulvaney, who did not respond to emails seeking comment, has cut an influential swath among House conservatives since he was elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, when he defeated a longtime representative, John Spratt, a Democrat. He won by characterizing his opponent as a big-spending liberal, unconcerned about fiscal prudence, even though as chairman of the House Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt was among his party’s leading deficit hawks.

Since then, Mr. Mulvaney has perpetually rejected short-term spending agreements and questioned the government’s need to increase its statutory borrowing limits to avoid default. He has repeatedly opposed some of his own party’s budget proposals, and quickly established himself as one of the most outspoken members of that 2010 class of Republicans. By 2013, at the start of his second term, he declined to support Mr. Boehner’s re-election as speaker, abstaining from the vote in protest.

• Mother Jones: Trump's Budget Director Pick Spoke at a John Birch Society Event by Peva Levy (December 19, 2016)

Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), the ultra-conservative congressman tapped by Donald Trump to run the Office of Management and Budget, recently accepted a speaking invitation from the notorious John Birch Society, an extreme right-wing group known for peddling outlandish conspiracy theories for more than half a century.

In July, Mulvaney spoke at a dinner held by a local chapter of the group, which has long been exiled from mainstream conservatism. Founded in the 1950s, the outfit promoted a paranoid obsession with communist infiltration. It declared President Dwight Eisenhower "a conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." It opposed the civil rights movement as a communist plot. Ever since William F. Buckley Jr., the intellectual godfather of modern conservatism, felt compelled to disavow the John Birch Society in the early 1960s, most mainstream conservatives have dismissed the organization as an embarrassment for the right. But the group still exists and continues to emphasize the communist threat. In recent years, it has pushed more modern conspiracy theories: Obamacare finances euthanasia, the United Nations has a sinister scheme for world domination, Moscow is the hidden force behind Islamic terrorism.

[Special] The Trump Family's Failed Grift, Inauguration Edition

The Trump family has been working hard on trying to earn money from Donald Trump's electoral victory. Unfortunately for them, their attempt to cash in on the inauguration hit a snag:

• The Center for Public Integrity: Donald Trump's Sons Behind Nonprofit Selling Access to President-Elect by Carrie Levine (December 20, 2016)

A new Texas nonprofit led by Donald Trump’s grown sons is offering access to the freshly-minted president during inauguration weekend — all in exchange for million-dollar donations to unnamed “conservation” charities, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

* * *

A Center for Public Integrity review of Texas incorporation records found the Opening Day Foundation was created less than a week ago, on Dec. 14. Unlike political committees, such nonprofits aren’t required by law to reveal their donors, allowing sponsors to write seven-figure checks for access to the president while staying anonymous, if they choose.

• Washington Post: Offer of Access to Trump and Family at Fundraiser is Pulled Back, but Ties Remain by Matea Gold and David A. Fahrenthold (December 22, 2016)

The initial invitation from Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump dangled a rare opportunity for donors willing to pony up $500,000 and more: a private reception with the new president the day after his inauguration and a hunting or fishing excursion with one of the brothers.

“Opening Day is your opportunity to play a significant role as our family commemorates the inauguration of our father, friend and President Donald J. Trump,” read the draft obtained by TMZ.

But days after the details about the high-dollar Jan. 21 “camouflage & cufflinks”-themed fundraiser first leaked, a spokeswoman for the president-elect said Tuesday that neither he nor his adult sons were involved in plans for the event. And the organizers of the function — who include close friends of the Trump brothers — dialed back offers of access to the new president and his sons.

The confusion over the family’s connection to the fundraiser showed the degree to which Trump has failed to set rules that would protect his family from allegations of influence-peddling or draw clear lines between himself and the interests of his children, who will take over management of his business empire, watchdog groups said.

“This is an obvious and ongoing problem that this president will face until he creates a true firewall,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.

[Special] Independent: Former MI6 Agent Christopher Steele's Frustration as FBI Sat on Donald Trump Russia File for Months

By Kim Sengupta:

Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who investigated Donald Trump’s alleged Kremlin links, was so worried by what he was discovering that at the end he was working without pay, The Independent has learned.

Mr Steele also decided to pass on information to both British and American intelligence officials after concluding that such material should not just be in the hands of political opponents of Mr Trump, who had hired his services, but was a matter of national security for both countries.

* * *

In [July 2016]  Mr Steele produced a memo, which went to the  FBI, stating that Mr Trump’s campaign team had agreed to a Russian request to dilute attention on Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine. Four days later Mr Trump stated that he would recognise Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. A month later officials involved in his campaign asked the Republican party’s election platform to remove a pledge for military assistance to the Ukrainian government against separatist rebels in the east of the country.

Mr Steele claimed that the Trump campaign was taking this path because it was aware that the Russians were hacking Democratic Party emails. No evidence of this has been made public, but the same day that Mr Trump spoke about Crimea he called on the Kremlin to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The Full Story (January 14, 2017)

[Special] Quick Hits & Nasty Cuts, December 2016 Edition

News of note from December 2016: 

• Talking Points Memo: It Comes So Easily by Josh Marshall (December 12, 2016)

It's all inconsequential in a way, just one more random nonsensical remark. But it shows the casual disregard for the truth or even basic commonsense that is pervasive with all of the President-Elect's leading sycophants. And of course, let's be honest, the President-Elect himself. It's a culture of casual lying and nonsense. It's an empire of word salad.

• Bloomberg: Trump Says No Deals While in Office; Sons Will Run Company by Kevin Cirilli, Caleb Melby, and Ben Brody (December 12, 2016)

President-elect Donald Trump gave his first clues as to how he’ll step away from his businesses, saying he would put his two sons Don and Eric in charge by Inauguration Day Jan. 20 but offering no information about his own role.

• Talking Points Memo: Judiciary Dem Flags Missing Documents In Sessions' AG Questionaire by Tierney Sneed (December 14, 2016)

According to [Diane] Feinstein's letter, Sessions' submission was missing copies of a number of speeches he has given over the years, including a a speech at an event called “Restoration Weekend” from 2003 and a 2007 speech for an event with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that seeks to decrease immigration.

[Special] Donald Trump, Environmentalist

Washington Post: Energy Dept. Rejects Trump’s Request to Name Climate-Change Workers, Who Remain Worried by Joe Davidson (December 13, 2016)

“The Department of Energy received significant feedback from our workforce throughout the department, including the National Labs, following the release of the transition team’s questions. Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” said Eben Burnham-Snyder, a department spokesman. “Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of DOE (Department of Energy) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people. We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department.

Washington Post: Scientists are Frantically Copying U.S. Climate Data, Fearing it Might Vanish Under Trump by Brady Dennis (December 13, 2016)

The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.

Think Progress: Trump Taps Rep. Ryan Zinke for Interior, Adds Another Climate Denier to the Cabinet by Samantha Page (December 13, 2016)

Zinke’s nomination could be great news for big fossil fuel interests. The congressman has made it clear that he favors coal — over U.S. taxpayers. Zinke opposed efforts to reform the federal coal leasing program, which is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers billions each year, by undervaluing public land. He was also a strong supporter of the successful effort to repeal the oil export ban, a move that is expected to increase U.S. exports while tying the country even more closely to the international oil market.

Washington Post: Trump Taps Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to Head Energy Department He Once Vowed to Abolish by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson (December 14, 2016)

His nomination — announced officially by Trump’s transition team a day after sources leaked the decision — stirred further alarm from environmental groups and others worried that the Trump administration will roll back efforts to expand renewable energy and give a powerful platform for officials questioning the scientific consensus on climate change.

[Special] Talking Points Memo: Hall of Mirrors

By Josh Marshall:

The Post's David Ignatius has a column out tonight with a number of observations. But the big news is this ...

According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated? The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is, at a minimum, highly irregular and inappropriate. We don't know if it is more than that. It would be good to find out.

Then there's this.

The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth has an article which claims that American intelligence officials told their Israeli counterparts in recent meetings that they should be cautious about sharing their closest held secrets with the Trump administration for fear it might be shared with Russia and by Russia with Iran.

* * *
These are, needless to say, highly disturbing claims.

To evaluate them, we should bear in mind that what we are hearing is what American intelligence officials supposedly told Israeli intelligence officials and which Israeli intelligence officials, by whatever means, passed on to an Israeli journalist. The sourcing is at best attenuated. But we should also note that the paper is Israel's largest circulation daily and the reporter is a highly respected investigative journalist, Ronen Bergman.

The Full Story (January 13, 2017)

[Special] Donald Trump: Perpetual Liar, Vainglorious Blowhard (Russian Hacking Edition)

• Yahoo News: Donald Trump Rips ‘NBC Nightly News’ as ‘Biased, Inaccurate and Bad’ by Brian Flood (December 12, 2016) - 

President-elect Donald Trump blasted “NBC Nightly News” as “biased, inaccurate and bad,” adding another twist to his bizarre relationship with the network continues.

Trump apparently didn’t like an NBC segment that showed excerpts of his “Fox News Sunday” interview with Chris Wallace in which he said he rejects CIA findings regarding Russia hacking the election and opts not to receive daily intelligence briefings.

• NBC News: Trump Has Been Strikingly Consistent in Denying Russian Hacking Role by Chuck Todd (January 6, 2017) - 

As President-elect Donald Trump today receives his intelligence briefing from top officials on Russia's role in the 2016 presidential race, it's worth listing his remarkable consistency denying Russian interference, which dates back to the debate season.

[Todd lists eight (8) separate direct quotes from Trump denying Russia was behind the hack]

• Washington Post: Trump Admits to Russian Hacking Even As He Attacks U.S. Intelligence Committee by Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker (January 12, 2017) - 

President-elect Donald Trump acknowledged for the first time here Wednesday that Russia was responsible for hacking the Democratic Party during last year’s election, but he denied that the leaks were intended to boost him and argued that Moscow would cease cyberattacks on the United States once he is sworn in.

In a rollicking hour-long news conference, Trump furiously denounced as “fake news” the reports that Russia had obtained salacious intelligence that could compromise him. He suggested that any damaging information collected by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration would already have been released — and he celebrated what had leaked out about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“As far as hacking, I think it was Russia,” Mr. Trump said. “Hacking’s bad, and it shouldn’t be done. But look at the things that were hacked, look at what was learned from that hacking.”

Washington Post: Trump to Name Goldman Sachs Veteran Gary Cohn to Head National Economic Council

By Renae Merle, Ylan Q. Mui and Philip Rucker:

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to name a top Goldman Sachs executive, Gary Cohn, to lead the National Economic Council, handing the Wall Street veteran significant sway over his administration’s economic policy.

The council includes the heads of various departments and agencies and works within the administration to coordinate economic policy. As director, Cohn would be in position to advise Trump as he attempts to fulfill some of his chief campaign promises, including lowering corporate taxes and rethinking U.S. trade policy.

Trump intends to formally name Cohn to the post, which does not require Senate confirmation, but additional details remained unclear, according to a transition official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not authorized to speak publicly. The expected appointment was first reported by NBC News.

In Cohn, Trump would once again be picking a veteran of a New York investment bank that he repeatedly denounced during the campaign. During the campaign Trump argued that Goldman held “total control” over both Democrat Hillary Clinton and GOP rival Ted Cruz and he even released a television ad that flashed an image of Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein and warned of a “global power structure” that was robbing American workers.

The Full Story (December 9, 2016)

See also: Trump Said to Offer Goldman's Cohn National Economic Council Job by Dakin Campbell and Saleha Mohsin of Bloomberg News.

Washington Post: Trump Names Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma Attorney General Suing EPA on Climate Change, to Head the EPA

By Chris Mooney, Brady Dennis and Steven Mufson:

President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Scott Pruitt, the attorney general of the oil and gas-intensive state of Oklahoma, to head the Environmental Protection Agency, a move signaling an assault on President Obama’s climate change and environmental legacy.

Pruitt has spent much of his energy as attorney general fighting the very agency he is being nominated to lead.

He is the third of Trump’s nominees who have key philosophical differences with the missions of the agencies they have been tapped to run. Ben Carson, named to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development, has expressed a deep aversion to the social safety net programs and fair housing initiatives that have been central to that agency’s activities. Betsy DeVos, named education secretary, has a passion for private school vouchers that critics say undercut the public school systems at the core of the government’s mission.

The Full Story (December 8, 2016)

Truth-Out: Trump's Bait and Switch: How to Swamp Washington and Double-Cross Your Supporters Big Time

By Nomi Prins:

Given his cabinet picks so far, it's reasonable to assume that The Donald finds hanging out with anyone who isn't a billionaire (or at least a multimillionaire) a drag. What would there be to talk about if you left the Machiavellian class and its exploits for the company of the sort of normal folk you can rouse at a rally? It's been a month since the election and here's what's clear: crony capitalism, the kind that festers and grows when offered public support in its search for private profits, is the order of the day among Donald Trump's cabinet picks. Forget his own "conflicts of interest." Whatever financial, tax, and other policies his administration puts in place, most of his appointees are going to profit like mad from them and, in the end, Trump might not even wind up being the richest member of the crew.

Only a month has passed since November 8th, but it's already clear (not that it wasn't before) that Trump's anti-establishment campaign rhetoric was the biggest scam of his career, one he pulled off perfectly. As president-elect and the country's next CEO-in-chief, he's now doing what many presidents have done: doling out power to like-minded friends and associates, loyalists, and -- think John F. Kennedy, for instance -- possibly family.

Here, however, is a major historical difference: the magnitude of Trump's cronyism is off the charts, even for Washington. Of course, he's never been a man known for doing small and humble. So his cabinet, as yet incomplete, is already the richest one ever. Estimates of how loaded it will be are almost meaningless at this point, given that we don't even know Trump's true wealth (and will likely never see his tax returns). Still, with more billionaires at the doorstep, estimates of the wealth of his new cabinet members and of the president-elect range from my own guesstimate of about $12 billion up to $35 billion. Though the process is as yet incomplete, this already reflects at least a quadrupling of the wealth represented by Barack Obama's cabinet.

Trump's version of a political and financial establishment, just forming, will be bound together by certain behavioral patterns born of relationships among those of similar status, background, social position, legacy connections, and an assumed allegiance to a dogma of self-aggrandizement that overshadows everything else. In the realm of politico-financial power and in Trump's experience and ideology, the one with the most toys always wins. So it's hardly a surprise that his money- and power-centric cabinet won't be focused on public service or patriotism or civic duty, but on the consolidation of corporate and private gain at the expense of the citizenry.

The Full Story (December 8, 2016)

[Special] Washington Post Russia Round-Up From December and January

Follow along with these Washington Post excerpts as we begin to see, more and more, that Russia has Trump by the balls. "No puppet, no puppet," indeed. 

Secret CIA Assessment Says Russia Was Trying to Help Trump Win White House by Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller (December 9, 2016):

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

Trump, CIA on Collision Course Over Russia’s Role in U.S. Election by David Nakamura and Greg Miller (December 10, 2016):

“Given his proclivity for revenge combined with his notorious thin skin, this threatens to result in a lasting relationship of distrust and ill will between the president and the intelligence community,” said Paul Pillar, former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center.

U.S. intelligence officials described mounting concern and confusion about how to proceed in an administration so openly hostile to their function and role. “I don’t know what the end game is here,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said. “After Jan. 20,” the official said, referring to Inauguration Day, “we’re in uncharted territory.”

Pillar added: “Everything Trump has indicated with regard to his character and tendencies for vindictiveness might be worse” than former president Richard Nixon, who also had a dysfunctional relationship with the intelligence community.

[Special] The Guardian: Trump Press Conference: 'Sick People' Leaked 'Fake News' Russia Dossier (Live Coverage)

Various employees of The Guardian had live coverage of Trump's first press conference in months, where he railed against everyone and failed to take any personal responsibility, as usual. He said the reports about his piss fetish was a fabrication, and he also said he would not put his interests into a blind trust, thus ensuring massive ethics concerns for however long the country has to deal with this man.

This entire structure is engineered around avoiding "unreasonable losses" as opposed to meeting ethical requirements.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) January 11, 2017

[Special] Donald Trump, Watersports Champ

CNN: Intel Chiefs Presented Trump with Claims of Russian Efforts to Compromise Him by Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein (January 10, 2017) -

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.

The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.

One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.

These senior intelligence officials also included the synopsis to demonstrate that Russia had compiled information potentially harmful to both political parties, but only released information damaging to Hillary Clinton and Democrats. This synopsis was not an official part of the report from the intelligence community case about Russian hacks, but some officials said it augmented the evidence that Moscow intended to harm Clinton's candidacy and help Trump's, several officials with knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

[Special] Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State Nominee

Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, has been chosen by President-Elect Donald Trump to be his Secretary of State. Like Trump, Tillerson has no government or military experience. Like most of the people surrounding Trump, including the Trump clan, Tillerson has interesting ties to Russia, although not urine related.

Tillerson's confirmation hearing begins today, January 11, 2017, and you can follow live updates over at Talking Points Memo (via journalist Caitlin MacNeal). To get up to speed on Tillerson, here are some links:

• Washington Post: Trump Expected to Pick Rex Tillerson as His Secretary of State by Steven Mufson and Philip Rucker (December 10, 2016)
  
• New Yorker: Rex Tillerson, From A Corporate Oil Sovereign to the State Department by Steve Coll (December 11, 2016)
  
• Washington Post: Rex Tillerson is an Able Executive. But What About His Ties to Russia? by the WaPo Editorial Board (December 12, 2016)
  
• New York Times: Rex Tillerson, Exxon C.E.O., Chosen as Secretary of State by Michael D. Shear and Maggie Haberman (December 12, 2016)
  
• Talking Points Memo: ExxonMobil CEO Has Cozy Relationship With Russia, Complicated Climate Record by Matt Shuman (December 12, 2016)
  
• Washington Post: Trump Picks ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State by Steven Mufson, Philip Rucker and Karoun Demirjian (December 13, 2016)
  
• L.A. Times: Rex Tillerson Could be a Good Secretary of State — but not in a Trump Administration by Max Boot (December 15, 2016)

Talking Points Memo: Into the Obamacare Repeal Charnel House

By Josh Marshall:

Today I want to show you some hard, granular numbers on the human toll of what Republicans plan to prepare for President Trump's signature right out of the gate next month. Depending on how they go about it, we are talking about tens of millions of Americans who are about to lose their health insurance coverage. Some people might think that's a big deal. For the moment the main policy debate within the GOP is how to accomplish this and evade as much blame as possible.

* * *

Let's start with some toplines. The total number set to lose their coverage is a bit over 23 million Americans (23,134,000). Of those, 12,311,000 lose their Medicaid expansion-based coverage; 8,963,000 are exchange purchasers who benefit from significant federal subsidies; 1,390,000 are young adults under the age of 26 who are allowed to remain on their parents plans; a final 470,000 are basic health care plan enrollees in Minnesota and New York.

* * *
And here's something even more interesting, partial repeal turns out to be worse than full repeal. The Urban Institute has a new study showing something that seems paradoxical, but actually makes sense if you know the way the health insurance industry has integrated with and remade itself to operate with the ACA. Urban Institute's numbers of people who lose insurance is slightly lower than Gaba's numbers. They project 22.5 million as opposed to Gaba's 23.124. But if repeal is partial, they project an additional 7.3 million would lose their coverage. That brings the total to 29.8 million, close to 10 percent of the people in the entire country.

Why would partial repeal hurt more people than full repeal? Well, in this case partial repeal means repealing the money (the incentives) without the regulatory structure. In the words of the Urban Institute study: "The additional 7.3 million people become uninsured because of the near collapse of the nongroup insurance market." Basically you're leaving the regulations intact but removing the money that makes them possible. So everything goes haywire and you get a lot of collateral damage. Why would you do that? Simple. The rules of the Senate allow you to do that with 50 votes. It's politically easier to destroy care for an additional 7 million people.

The Full Story (December 7, 2016)

Think Progress: Trump to Tap Vocal EPA Opponent to Head the EPA

By Samantha Page:

Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt has been tapped to run the Environmental Protection Agency in the Trump administration, multiple sources reported Wednesday.

Pruitt’s selection, while not a surprise, signifies a complete rethinking of the EPA. Environmental groups were appalled by the selection, saying it was a win for polluters and a loss for the American public.

As with so many of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet and transition staff, Pruitt does not accept the scientific consensus on climate change. As attorney general, Pruitt has routinely backed fossil fuel interests over those of environmental regulators and has rejected the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide, the leading contributor to human-caused climate change.

Pruitt’s ties to fossil fuel companies run deep. He received some $300,000 in fossil fuel money to support his campaign for attorney general.

In one instance, Pruitt used talking points from an energy company in a letter to the EPA, opposing air pollution standards for natural gas production. According to reporting from the New York Times, Devon Energy, an Oklahoma-based oil and gas company actually wrote the 2011 letter, which Pruitt submitted on state letterhead.
The Full Story (December 7, 2016)