A Credible Democrat Needs To Announce in Mississippi

There's one announced Democrat in the 2018 US Senate race in Mississippi -- Jensen Bohren -- but his biography (as well as any photograph) seems to be missing from the Net. He does have a website, but it looks underfunded and hence under-developed. He hits the right notes -- calls himself a "Berniecrat," supports Medicare for all, opposes the Citizens United Supreme Court case that opened up political campaigns to billionaire donors, and sees the assault on voting rights as our clearest and most present danger.

But who is he and where does he comes from? What's his history? His work experience and political allies (other than Bernie)? Hard to say.

We're interested because if Steve Bannon backs another fringe Republican whack-job against incumbent Republican Senator Roger Wicker in next June's Mississippi Republican primary, there needs to be a credible Democratic senatorial candidate cued up and ready to run like Doug Jones did in Alabama.

Roger Wicker v. Chris McDaniel?
Steve Bannon has pushed Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel to challenge Wicker, so we might see another insurgent Trumpist against a man seen as part of the "party establishment."

McDaniel already has a following among Mississippi conservatives. He ran as a Tea Party insurgent and came close to defeating Republican Senator Thad Cochran in the 2014 Republican primary. Cochran ended up beating McDaniel because of Mississippi's "open" primary rules which allowed Democrats to vote in that close run-off election, and Cochran courted the African American vote to good effect. McDaniel has a history of Trumpian utterances about race and gender.

McDaniel's defeat in that 2014 run-off against Cochran was climaxed by his refusal to concede the race on election night (video below). Yes, he looks like just the guy Steve Bannon would want to support.




Several "ifs" here: If McDaniel gets into the primary race against Wicker next year (he says he'll announce his decision in January) and if he defeats Wicker in that primary, Mississippi Democrats and moderate Republicans are going to need a presentable Democrat on the ballot. The Deep South seems ready for more awakening.

Who Are the Big Losers?

Yesterday was a big day, with two major developments related to voting:

1. Judge Paul Ridgeway in Wake Superior Court ended the Nathan Miller attempt to derail the Boone Town Council elections and ordered that the newly elected council members be certified and cleared for swearing into office.

2. Doug Jones won the Alabama special Senate election.

The Losers

Nathan Miller and the Watauga GOP. What will they try next to show their hatred of young voters?

Steve Bannon. His plans for a Trumpist empire look slightly crimped this morning. Twitter is reporting that Bannon aides are now saying that Steve really wanted Mo Brooks for that Senate seat, but was sort of forced to accept Roy Moore (because, uh, Moore won the Alabama primary).

Donald J. Trump. Hahahaha. Trump tweeted this morning that he was right all along about Alabama because when he was stumping the state for Luther Strange, he said in public that Roy Moore could never win the general election. Trump is 0-2 in picking candidates to campaign for, but because in his head he's always right and always a winner, he's drinking this rationalization in a great gulp.

Roy Moore. We hear his horse has applied to the witness relocation program. And before we forget seasons greetings -- Happy Hanukkah, Mrs. Moore!

Virginia Foxx. If a pro-choice Democrat can be elected to the US Senate from Alabama, then anything can happen in the year ahead. You might want to think about that, Madam Foxx. Perhaps you can get President Trump into the Fifth District to campaign for you.

Photo: Alex Brandon/AP

One of Those Watershed Moments

I have to admit that I'm going to miss the Roy Moore campaign. It's been a primer on where the Republican Party has parked its identity in the Age of Trump. Those reminders are both necessary and, lucky for us, numerous. Who is the Trump/Moore Republican? He's a soldier -- defiantly reactionary, divisive by prime instinct, preacher-perfect at denouncing other people's sins while personally wearing no underwear, and sentimental about slavery.

That's what made this Kayla Moore moment last night in Midland City so ... solid. The film is going to live forever.






Doug Jones can win this thing. I discount all polls on this race, including the Fox News one yesterday that had Jones up by 10 points, because how do you model who's going to actually show up and vote? The Alabama secretary of state predicted "a modest turnout of 20 to 25 percent" — surprising, given all the national media attention and the fact that voter turn-out was about 64 percent in the 2016 presidential election. Not surprising though, given the depressing downer nature of the whole campaign. The religious right is turned on by Roy Moore, and of course Democrats are ecstatic about how well Doug Jones has done, but a wide middle swath of not-particularly-engaged voters, including many educated Republicans, have been turned off by the spectacle of Moore, are embarrassed about him, and they either won't vote at all or they'll write in someone else's name (and maybe a few of them will even vote for the Democrat because they no longer believe in Hell).

Reportedly, African-American voters aren't energized about Jones, though major national political figures and celebrities like Charles Barkley have stumped the state. Last night, Jones got "an implicit boost, of a sort," from Condoleezza Rice, who without ever mentioning Doug Jones by name (or Roy Moore either), called on Alabamians to “reject bigotry, sexism and intolerance” and “insist that our representatives are dignified, decent and respectful of the values we hold dear.” Rice is a native of Alabama and maybe still has family there.

Based on what happened nationally with so many suburban, nominal Republicans and independent voters back on November 7, Jones could win it with the growing urban/suburban centers like Birmingham and Montgomery and Huntsville, especially if African-Americans don't sit at home and enough moderate Republicans either do stay at home or throw their vote in any direction but Moore's. The Democrats have been working hard while Moore's got no ground game and has been totally absent from the campaign for days at a time, including all of the past six days before his rally last night, when Mrs. Moore schooled everyone on who's a bigot. When a candidate acts like he doesn't need to work for it and doesn't show up with the public for days on end, do voters reward him with high office? Sometimes they don't.

Steve Bannon did his part at last night's rally, encouraging the booing of Republican Senator Richard Shelby, attacking both Condi Rice and Bob Corker, and then mocking Ivanka Trump's comments about Moore, that there's a special place in hell for people who sexually molest teenaged girls. Bannon has his entire reputation of king-maker and incipient political empire riding on this election today.

See Ya Wouldn't Want To Be Ya

The best thing that could happen to the National Republican Party in the short term -- Roy Moore loses in Alabama. Otherwise, he's the aloha lei that every Republican at every level will be wearing in 2018, and it's not going to smell garden fresh.

Meanwhile, Trump is the nominal leader of the Republican Party but displays little actual leadership. Oh, he'll stomp on someone he thinks dissed him, like Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennessee, but as far as providing the political machinery by which Republican candidates can run next year, that ain't exactly happening. Trump's poll numbers are stuck at a low register, and Republican office-holders who have to run again in 2018 are trying to figure out how to run without inviting Trump into their states or districts.

Then there's the Trump whisperer, Steve Bannon, who's said he'll primary every Republican incumbent senator except Ted Cruz next year. What does Trump do? Does he dive in to help the incumbents against insurgents, like he tried to help Luther Strange in the Alabama primary? He's still miffed about that, that Strange lost by 9 points. He's complained that he should never have listened to Republican Party operatives who told him he had to campaign for Strange to protect the party. That's why calling Trump the "head of the GOP" seems like a suicide pact.

More like he's the demise of the GOP, the virus that wipes out the host. So we get the spectacle of the RNC withdrawing financial support from Roy Moore weeks ago and then hurriedly reinstating it yesterday after Trump tweeted on Monday his full endorsement of the child molester. Trump didn't tell anyone in advance he was going to endorse Moore, so the RNC is left looking like what it is -- rudderless and without any moral foundation.

Gorka Sees the Future, and You're Not in It

Sebastian Gorka, Trump's former White House Lucifer-lookalike, told an auditorium full of College Republicans last night in Chapel Hill that he predicted and firmly believed that Trump will complete eight years in the presidency and will be followed by eight years of Mike Pence. The students cheered. According to the News and Observer, there were about 200 in the room.

I love political prognosticators. They make my corpuscles bunch and run. I listen to them avidly and read their opinions wherever I can find them, and then if they're writers, I want to see what they look like and whether I can take what they predict as possible. Or anyways likely. Or merely self-congratulatory fantasy based on living in a box.

Gorka is not clothed in credibility. He's all about macho dominance of perceived enemies. He famously bragged about Trump, “the alpha males are back,” and he itched to give Islam -- the whole religion apparently -- some alpha male comeuppance. He was in on drafting the first Muslim ban. He was and still is a satellite of Steve Bannon and a regular contributor to Breitbart News. He had an ill-defined job in the White House -- like Omarosa -- and new Chief of Staff John Kelly got rid of him on August 25, 2017.

Gorka wrote a "resignation letter" that was excerpted in The Federalist. It's a "kiss my white ass!" directed at John Kelly:

“given recent events, it is clear to me that forces that do not support the MAGA promise are – for now – ascendant within the White House. As a result, the best and most effective way I can support you, Mr. President, is from outside the People’s House.”

So Gorka tells the students in Chapel Hill last night that he wasn't fired. He resigned. And then predicted an Era of Trump/Pence. He described Trump as “Kryptonite to political correctness” and an “unstoppable steam locomotive.” Macho authoritarianism? Yes indeedy, there's authoritarianism, but it's all coming from the Middle East, or from anyplace Muslims are in the majority. Trump is, in essence, an alpha male saving the race.

What a time we live in! Members of churches all over Alabama have become winkers at child molestation, perhaps in concert with also thinking Trump was divinely appointed to the job. Trump has finally bullied Sessions into pursuing Hillary Clinton with a Special Prosecutor, and the president just appointed his lawyer's husband to a federal judgeship (in Alabama, no less), a man who only became a lawyer three years ago and has never tried a case and has a social media history that strongly suggests he lacks a judicial temperament, and oops! he failed to tell Congress he has a conflict of interest with the Trump White House.

So in such a whirling world, Gorka predicts 16 years of Trump/Pence. I ask you, in a world so warped, who can confidently prognosticate otherwise? (Though my corpuscles are telling me another story altogether.)

Steve Bannon v. Karl Rove in the NC 9th District

Pittenger

Karl Rove -- so he's still a thing! -- is fundraising for incumbent US Congressman Robert Pittenger. I think we knew that already but had stifled a yawn in its general direction. But then this: Chaos King Steve Bannon has now come out for Pittenger's holy primary challenger, Rev. Mark Harris, whom Pittenger managed to beat in the primary of 2016 by a mere 134 votes.

Karl Rove may have inadvertently invited Bannon into the 9th District primary. Oops. Rove published a tart take-down of Bannon for meddling in Senate Republican primaries, and Bannon responded within hours by expanding his war on the Republican establishment to the Pittenger House seat, probably because Pittenger is one of Rove's pet projects. Take that, Turd Blossom!

Karl Rove is one of the higher profile Republican establishment figures who has consistently criticized Trump as an imploding star who's going to create a sucking black hole for many Republican office-holders. Rove famously said of Trump last June in the Wall Street Journal -- his organ of choice, wherein he also blasted Bannon last Thursday -- "His chronic impulsiveness is apparently unstoppable and clearly self-defeating. Mr. Trump may have mastered the modes of communication, but not the substance, thereby sabotaging his own agenda."

Dan McCready

Rove also said this: "Mr. Trump has figured out how to tweet his way around the mainstream media. Yet by disregarding basic fact checking, he is deepening the already considerable doubts Americans have about his competence and trustworthiness."

Meanwhile, Rev. Mark Harris, who can pound the living hell out of any Bible you give him, has out-raised the incumbent Pittenger. But also know this: the likely Democratic challenger in the 9th District, former Marine Dan McCready, has out-raised both of them, reporting $416,000 for the quarter and bringing his total to $875,000 for the year.

The Ritual Humiliation of Mitch McConnell

Yesterday in the Rose Garden,
Mitch McConnell agreed to put his
testicles into an undisclosed location

A couple of hours before Trump was claiming McConnell as his bestest friend evah yesterday, he was blaming McConnell for all the dysfunction in the Trump administration at a cabinet meeting.

In the Rose Garden, with McConnell shrinking beside him: McConnell's a "friend of mine for a long time," said Trump, and we're "closer than ever before."

At the Cabinet meeting earlier in the day: Trump said he was frustrated that Republicans had not accomplished more of his agenda but added that he's "not going to blame myself, to be honest."

If I were Mitch McConnell, I think I'd be very careful about that "closer than ever before." Especially with Trump's other (truer) BFF Steve Bannon delivering a blunt warning to McConnell in front of iPootValues conservatives over the weekend: “Up on Capitol Hill, it’s the Ides of March .... They’re just looking to find out who is going to be Brutus to your Julius Caesar.”

Good God. Has ever a threat of lethal backstabbing been more publicly delivered?

Okay, I'm really delighted that Bannon read Julius Caesar in high school. I'm delighted that anybody in the Trump administration reads anything beyond their Q-Rating. But if I were Mitch McConnell, who scarcely a day after that Bannon attack was standing in dagger distance of Trump, I would not be locked in any embrace with the man who always turns on his friends when he needs to blame someone for his own failings.

True, McConnell has so richly earned all this grief from the leader of his own party, who understands nothing about legislating and cares even less. McConnell punished Obama for eight years by obstructing everything, and now he must endure the idiot in the Oval Office who's pulling down the temple on all their heads.

As you should know by now, I'm a connoisseur of political irony, and at this moment I find the circle closing like a snap purse. Consider the ads McConnell ran in 1984 to defeat Democratic Senator Dee Huddleston and thus began his rise to this present moment. You indeed can't run from your record, Mitch.

Trump Plays Russian Roulette in Alabama

...and three chambers in the gun are loaded.

Trump continually proves the old saying: "You can't out-think a man who ain't thinking."

He didn't think enough before endorsing Luther Strange in the August Alabama primary. Strange had been appointed (more about that tainted appointment below) temporarily to fill Jeff Sessions' Senate seat and was running for the permanent job against a couple of other Alabama conservatives. Strange had a leg up. He was already the incumbent, and he was a favorite of Mitch McConnell (actually, his boy. Since his appointment, Strange has become a very dependable grunt in the McConnell squad. And McConnell has shepherded millions of campaign aid into Strange's bank account). Trump wanted to lead that band, so he took over as drum major and announced, "Luther Strange -- my boy too!"

Trump apparently thought the August Alabama Senate primary was mainly between Luther Strange and Congressman Mo Brooks. There was some other guy running, but he wasn't a factor (somebody said). Brooks had been bitter as gall to Trump. He had righteously slammed the door before Trump got the nomination: “Donald Trump is an adulterer,” Brooks hissed in an interview in 2016. He clearly detests Trump, and why would Trump want another Ron Paul in the Senate?

That third guy in the race? According to Robert Costa and Philip Rucker, "it was unclear whether Trump fully grasped the potential" of former Supreme Court Judge Roy Moore.

Oopsy.

Roy Moore

Moore is a Bible-thumper and an Alabama celebrity (for defying Caesar in the name of Jesus). He has the personality of a yellow-jacket. He's been twice removed as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, cause he's a populist in the tradition of George Wallace. So he makes mainstream and country-club Republicans nervous, while some rural Democrats like him. Lots of Republicans too, cause Roy Moore won that August primary by six percentage points over Strange. Third-place finisher Mo Brooks quickly endorsed Moore, and so did former White House puppeteer Steve Bannon.

Hmmm. Maybe Trump finally thought. "Is it a good thing to stay balls-to-the-wall in a Republican primary where my guy is already a loser? And while Steve-O is backing the other guy?" Because Trump suddenly -- after going mute on support for Strange since last August -- just tweeted a day ago Strange's name in a positive way and announced he was going to Alabama tomorrow for a Strange rally. (Fill in your quip here.)

Luther Strange has become the embodiment of the Republican Establishment, the edifice that Bannon has vowed to blow up. Trump's had that mood too, channeling Bannon. How odd then it must have been for Trump to wake up and discover he's the avatar for a second-place swamp creature.

If Strange loses and Moore wins next Tuesday -- last poll I saw, Moore was leading Strange, 47 to 39 percent -- Trump looks both weak and foolish. If Moore wins next Tuesday, prospects for Democratic nominee Doug Jones goes up. Jones is a former U.S. prosecutor with a statewide reputation for courage. He prosecuted two men who set the bomb that killed those girls in the Birmingham church back on September 15, 1963.

What If Strange Wins Next Tuesday?

Doug Jones

Strange was appointed to the seat by Governor Robert Bentley. Bentley was at the time himself under investigation for various misdeeds (and he would soon resign from office in complete disgrace). At the time of his appointment, Strange was Attorney General of Alabama, which also meant he was in charge of investigating Governor Bentley. Solid journalism revealed that Strange had delayed and vacillated the Bentley investigation, and for that he got a seat in the Senate. Which he lobbied for.

Bentley and Strange were already tainted by revelations of general Republican corruption in Alabama government at that time. The Speaker of the Alabama House had been convicted of profiting from his office in 2016 and sentenced to four years in prison. And the Bentley scandal was long-running and salacious.

In times like these, the nomination of Strange could produce a revolt among Republicans and an opportunity for Democrat Doug Jones. Either way, with whichever Republican wins the primary, the watch goes to Jones, whose prospects will depend on his smarts and his money. He's bringing Joe Biden to Alabama the week after the Republican run-off between Strange and Moore.

A New Political Party? Where Will the Refugees Go?

When one of the two major political parties gets in trouble, there's always talk of "third party." It's happening now to the Republicans. Jeremy Peters is out this morning with a piece in the NYTimes, wondering if Trump's about to brand a new property political party. (What shall we call it? "The Trump Party"? Or just "Trump"? "Trumpists"? "Trumpeters"? (In fairness, probably should be named for Bannon, its brain. How about The Bannonarians? Or how about White Nation?)

Bannon intends to make it happen. He's got his "weapons" back, he's leveled on his targets, and he's blasting away at the Republican establishment. McConnell, bam! Ryan, boom! He intends to take them and others down. Trump is the party now. You cannot oppose Trump. There are consequences.

Sen. Bob Corker

Like for Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee. There's a rumor Bannon's prepared to support a primary opponent against Corker. Trump has attacked him on Twitter. Why? Corker publicly and on camera said that Trump had not demonstrated the “stability” or “competence” necessary to effectively lead the nation.

Now Corker is very publicly wondering if he'll even run for his Senate seat. It would only be his third term. He seems smart, level-headed, fair (though I don't prefer his votes). But he stood up to The Leader, and that makes Corker an untouchable.

Didn't Bannon just say on some Sunday interview show that Gov. Chris Christie got pushed out of Trump's inner circle because Christie didn't react well to the "Access Hollywood" tape? You remember, you do -- Trump struttin' in the locker room for the much younger Billy Bush. For the record -- and because I think we're mature enough now -- here is the unedited, unexpurgated transcription of part of what Trump bragged to Billy Bush:

“I moved on her and I failed – I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her, she was married. And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said: ‘I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.’ I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big phoney tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.”

Christie had faced a camera back when that tape came out and said he couldn't support Trump unless he apologized. Trump didn't apologize, and Christie "didn't make the plane."

You know who else is gone who just coincidentally also denounced Trump over the "pussy-grabbing"? Jason Chaffetz of Utah. He said at the time, "I'm out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president." Strangely, "I'm out" proved prophetic in another way. Chaffetz left Congress suddenly, earlier this year. One of the most active and ambitious of House Republican conservatives ... retires mid-term. That's strange. There's been no hint that Trump/Bannon bullied him, but makes you wonder.

And look at the other battlefield casualties -- representatives of what may eventually be called "The Republican Party" again, refugees from Trumpland who finally got fed up with the wrongheadedness, the ignorance, and the bullying. I count four House Republicans, three in the last five days, who've backed out of running for reelection, four members who would have had a decided edge for reelection, but who are fed up: 

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. When she announced her retirement back in April, she made a point of insisting, in front of cameras, that she’s not leaving Congress "because of her differences" with President Trump or with the direction of the Trump administration. But note: Ros-Lehtinen has been "one of the most vocal moderate Republican critics of the White House and the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Ros-Lehtinen, who said she didn’t vote for Trump last year, has disagreed with the president on deportations, transgender rights and budget cuts, and with House Republicans on healthcare" (Miami Herald).

Rep. Dave Trott (R-Mich.). Trott just announced yesterday. He's always been a so-called moderate. He's rich, from a suburban district that leans Republican, but he's had a "rocky relationship" with Trump. After Trump's equivocation about the "many fine people" who had associated themselves with neo-Fascism in Charlottesville, Trott said Trump should perhaps "stick to golf." Trott ... gone, after only two terms. He would have had the incumbent's advantage next year, unless he got primaried. (Dum-dum-DUMB)

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.). Dent, who's been a favorite on-camera interview target for MS-NBC, has been an outspoken Trump critic. His retirement statement (in part): “I’ve worked to instill

stability, certainty and predictability in Washington. I’ve fought to fulfill the basic functions of government, like keeping the lights on and preventing default. Regrettably, that has not been easy given the disruptive outside influences that profit from increased polarization and ideological rigidity that leads to dysfunction, disorder and chaos” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) Reichert is no Republican spring chicken. He's 67. He's represented his Washington State district for seven terms -- 14 years. But he decided it was time to exit. He had faced raucous town hall crowds in August, and Democrats were already lining up to battle each other in a primary for the privilege of knocking Reichert's lights out in 2018.

As the Republican Party splinters, there'll be more sudden retirements. Watch for it.

Trump and History

To cut to the chase: Trump knows as much about history as a dog knows his father.

In the statement Trump read aloud on Saturday about the violence in Charlottesville (a part of it not usually replayed on TV news), he said "We must ... cherish our history." That's an interesting line, as it shows up all the time as camouflage on the Web and elsewhere: "We're just celebrating white heritage. We're just honoring history." Well, particularly, the specific history of pain and loss of property by Civil War Americans defending their right to own and sweat human beings for a profit. 

L to R: Trump, Bannon, Gorka, Miller

Josh Marshall asked a crucial question yesterday: Who wrote that statement about "cherishing history" for Trump. He didn't write it himself. He can't write. He can barely read.

Was it White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, who reportedly has Trump's ear as some kind of international sage. Very recent headline about Gorka: "White House Aide Says People Should Stop Criticizing White Supremacists So Much."

Or was it NortoriousSB, Stephen Bannon? Everybody knows his fondness and nurturing care for the "Alt-Right."

Or was the author the other Stephen? Stephen Miller, the man who wrote Trump's Inauguration speech ("Darkness Falls") and the subsequent Trump Anti-Immigration Presidential Order that crashed. This Steve hung out at Duke University not long ago with Richard B. Spencer, the now-president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank. Richard Spencer's big media moment came soon after the election of Trump and in a Washington venue to boot: "At a National Policy Institute conference, [Spencer] quoted from Nazi propaganda and denounced Jews. In response to his cry "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!", a number of his supporters gave the Nazi salute and chanted in a similar fashion to the Sieg heil chant used at the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies. Spencer has also refused to denounce Adolf Hitler."

Jeffrey C. Billman, in The Independent Weekly, threw down the gauntlet to a major political party that is now left holding the coats of resurgent white supremacists:

At minimum, every decent Republican—looking at you, Tillis and Burr—should be demanding that Trump immediately fire Gorka, Miller, and Bannon .... In any normal administration, Republican or Democrat, [people] half that repugnant would have been prevented from getting anywhere near the Oval Office. In Trump’s, they’re top advisers.

History, who hasn't been introduced yet to Mr. Trump, will not be kind in telling this tale of a bad seed moving into the White House.

Trump to America: "Turns Out, Swamp Creatures Have to Eat Too!"

Just out this morning -- news that Trump has issued ethics waivers to at least 16 employees who are also former lobbyists. They have been given permission to "work on policy matters they handled while employed as lobbyists or to interact with their former colleagues in private-sector jobs."

Who got the waivers and why? According to reporting in the NYTimes, here are some of them:

Michael Catanzaro, who until January was registered as a lobbyist for companies including Devon Energy, an oil and gas company, and Talen Energy, a coal-burning electric utility. "Catanzaro moved from lobbying against Obama-era environmental rules to overseeing the White House office in charge of rolling back the same rules, an activity permitted by his waiver."

Shahira Knight, who had been a lobbyist for Fidelity Investments and now serves as a special assistant to the president for tax and retirement policy — the same topic she had lobbied on while working for Fidelity, one of the largest retirement-investment companies in the United States.

Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, along with four other former lawyers and another former employee from Jones Day — the law firm that handled compliance matters and other legal issues for the Trump campaign -- has a waiver to "communicate" with his old firm.

Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, who was an executive at Breitbart News, got a special waiver that was retroactive to January 20, which eliminated an apparent ethics problem for Bannon, who had continually advised Breitbart editors after the inauguration on what they should publish about Trump.

The ethics waivers released last night -- following blunt pressure from the Government Ethics Office -- apply only to White House employees. Still hanging out there are unknown ethics waivers granted to new employees in federal departments and agencies.

Trump promised repeatedly to "drain the swamp" and limit the influence of lobbyists in Washington. Instead, he's doing precisely the opposite. Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said, “They [the Trump administration] are circumventing what they touted as their signature ethics achievement. It’s utterly at odds with candidate Trump’s ‘drain the swamp’ rhetoric and it suggests that the Trump executive order is not worth the paper it is written on.”

The President's Daughter and the Male Manikin

Interesting article in today's NYTimes about the Jared-Ivanka lock on power at the White House. They have risen as the only antidote to Steve Bannon.

"Even allies acknowledge Mr. Trump is impulsive, indifferent to preparation and prone to embracing the last advice offered."

--Peter Baker, Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman

Jared Kushner

Son-in-law Jared Kushner is now in charge of so much he looks like Swiss Army Man. He's "fixing" everything, apparently, from the Middle East to your cousin's hydrocodone addiction. He can't be fired. Neither can Ivanka, who apparently made the case against Bannon most effectively: "He's puffing himself up, Daddy, at your expense."

Footnote: Stephen Miller, the young white nationalist from Duke University who wrote much of that Day of Doom inauguration speech, has pulled away from Bannon and attached himself to Ivanka. That's a rat leaving a sinking ship if we've ever seen one.

Kushner Beating Bannon in the White House Power Struggle?

Back on January 10, ten days before the Inauguration, I wrote here that I had decided that the appointment of Jared Kushner to a White House job was something I considered hopeful, at a time when all hope seemed lost.

Kushner -- who may actually be an escaped upscale department store mannikin -- appears to be on the ascendancy in the Trump White House, with Steve Bannon in eclipse. Bannon lost his seat on the National Security Agency. Bannon opposes any intervention in the Middle East. Kushner's for intervening, which makes the Tomahawk strikes last night possibly some of his work.

Leaked details this morning of a verbal confrontation between Bannon and Kushner in the White House concludes: "Finally, Mr. Bannon identified why they could not compromise, according to someone with knowledge of the conversation. 'Here’s the reason there’s no middle ground,' Mr. Bannon growled. 'You’re a Democrat.' ”

Yes, Kushner is, though what kind of Democrat marries himself to this administration is left to your fantasy works. Bottomline for us: Whatever kind of Democrat Kushner is must be shades better than the kind of Dementor that Mr. Bannon is.

The awesome warfare in the air of mighty competing powers. According to Maggie Haberman and her colleagues:

On one side are Mr. Bannon’s guerrilla warriors, eager to close the nation’s borders, dismantle decades of regulations, empower police departments and take on the establishment of both parties in Washington. On the other are Mr. Kushner’s “Democrats,” an appellation used to describe even Republicans who want to soften Mr. Trump’s rough edges and broaden his narrow popular appeal after months of historically low poll numbers.

Between Kushner and Bannon is the man in the Oval Office, who doesn't know what he's doing, who relies on first one and then the other of these competing forces, which produces chaos and uncertainty and horrible public policy. Better hope that Kushner prevails.

Steve Bannon's Wings Clipped

On the farm we regularly clipped the wings of our laying hens -- Leghorns, usually -- who decided to fly the coop and raid the vegetable garden. That put a stop to marauding scratchers.

Trump appears to have done something similar to his most powerful laying hen, Steve Bannon. Bannon's been kicked off the National Security Council.

Haven't decided what is more startling ... the fact of Bannon's sudden demotion or the cover story the White House is telling to explain why Bannon ever got that seat on the NSC with cabinet-level people in the first place: "Mr. Bannon had been put on the principals committee to keep an eye on Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn...."

That's some chicken scratch right there, boys!

Trump put as head of the National Security Council a retired general (and agent for foreign governments) who needed to have someone keeping an eye on him? Holy crap. And the guy they chose to keep that eye on him was the man who's publicly said his goal is to dismantle government as we know it? Holy crap on a stick.

According to leakers in the White House, Bannon threatened to quit the whole clown car and let Jared Kushner drive. Bannon is now denying that. "Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings," like yesterday's Trump presser in the Rose Garden.

That Bannon's demotion may be a by-product of Trump's imperial ego is just icing on this particular cake: "Mr. Bannon’s Svengali-style reputation has chafed on a president who sees himself as the West Wing’s only leading man. Several associates said the president had quietly expressed annoyance over the credit Mr. Bannon had received for setting the agenda — and Mr. Trump was not pleased by the 'President Bannon' puppet-master theme promoted by magazines, late-night talk shows and Twitter."

Ouch.

Death of a Salesman

Budget Director
Mick Mulvaney

Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney defended his proposed budget yesterday, and we were all edified. Short version: The president has determined that the poor have too much and the rich, too little. Shorter version: Take all the money and give it to the military. Shortest version: Screw everybody.

People have been focused since yesterday's news on the projected loss of programs like Meals on Wheels. Those hot meals go most frequently to people who watch Fox News all day and who probably voted for Trump. They live predominantly in rural areas that boosted Trump over the top in swing states.

But Meals on Wheels is the least of the damage, really, to Trump World, as all sorts of programs that benefit farmers, small-town educators and their students, rural redevelopment, infrastructure replacement -- the list gets long very fast -- are also fingered for destruction. The Appalachian Regional Commission, which built 4-lane highways in West Virginia for the coal industry, and supports the delivery of health care all over Appalachia -- you're dead!

But never you mind. Mulvaney's budget is just an indication of the smallness of his soul and has zero prospect of actually passing Congress. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), the powerful former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, spoke for many Republicans who haven't yet fallen off the right side of the known universe: “While we have a responsibility to reduce our federal deficit, I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive.”

Draconian. Careless. And counterproductive. That's an apt selection of adjectives, Congressman!

Speaking to reporters, Mulvaney was sunny in his disposition about his budget rollout, saying in effect, "What did you effing expect from this particular president?" We're very accustomed now to a Trump who makes no apologies, but Mulvaney wanted to underline that trait:

[Mulvaney] said that after-school programs had failed to help children in schools, that housing programs were “not well run,” that government health research had suffered “mission creep” and that grants to local communities “don’t do any good.”

...And he said that the president made no apologies for eliminating the government’s efforts to curb climate change.

“We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Mr. Mulvaney told reporters at the White House. “We consider that a waste of your money to go out and do that.”

A smiling death's head

The people Trump said he would never forget -- those coal miners in West Virginia, those rural poor in Wisconsin, those scrambling farmers in Texas -- they're officially and resoundingly forgotten in this budget. Never mind the environment. Never mind public radio and PBS. Never mind the encouragement of art and the humanities. They will go because they're supported by liberals. All the other stuff that poor people depend on -- it will go because Steve Bannon wants to destroy government, and Trump is Bannon's puppet.

This budget will not pass, not as proposed. But it will stand as an object lesson for the kind of minds that have taken control in the White House.

A Magical Negro Is Threatening Trump

Apparently, Barack Obama is still running the US government.

That's the newest conspiracy theory, exploded into full public view last Saturday by a series of Trump tweets in which he alleged that Obama had tapped his phones.

Not just tapped his phones. Obama is also apparently directing his corps of loyal federal employees to leak every damaging piece of information they can find on Trump. (Gee, couldn't one of you good moles at least leak Trump's tax returns?)

The conspiracy theory is fed constantly by Breitbart News, Fox News, and Infowars, the propaganda triumvirate dedicated to feeding the fears of the low-information voter. The fount flows first through Steve Bannon, who's ladled supposed "deep state" skullduggery into Trump's victim fantasies.

Trump put the Obama wiretapping conspiracy out there, and the propaganda triumvirate -- seconded by conservative talk radio -- has rushed to supply "facts" to dress the window. “Donald Trump is the victim. His campaign is the victim. These are police state tactics!" said Mark Levin, the originator of the wiretapping theory, on an obliging Fox News.

The fact that Obama has kept a low profile since the inauguration only fuels the conspiracy-minded. Obama must be plotting in secret -- since we can't see him -- sending directives to his agents in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA to leak information, assembling an army of Soros-funded Marxist-Leninist insurgents to show up at Republican town halls, chuckling over the transcripts of secretly tape-recorded phone calls made by the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief.

How the former president has grown since he left office!

Dumping Coal Waste Into Waterways Is NOTHING Compared To What's Coming

Trump promised during the presidential contest that he would "cancel" the Paris accord on global warming, the 194-nation agreement that all countries -- rich and poor, developed and undeveloped -- will take steps to reduce greenhouse gases. Since the Paris accord was signed, we have experienced two record-setting hot summers and now an unprecedented warm winter, so the urgency to stop the global warmup has become more intense.

Enter Trump. Russia's favorite president has already been peeing on environmental regs. According to leaked budget documents, the president intends to kill off nearly two dozen E.P.A. programs, including the Obama-era Clean Power Program, climate partnership programs with local governments, Energy Star grants to encourage efficiency research in consumer products and climate-change research. Those would be part of a broader Trump budget submission that would cut the EPA’s funding by 25 percent, to around $6.1 billion from $8.2 billion, and its staff by 20 percent.

As Steve Bannon suggested at CPAC, why else would Trump have appointed Scott Pruitt EPA administrator except to dismantle the EPA and environmental protections.

According to the reporting of Coral Davenport (with good sources inside the Trump White House),

Next week, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order directing Mr. Pruitt to start the lengthy legal process of unwinding Mr. Obama’s E.P.A. regulations for cutting greenhouse pollution from coal-fired power plants. Those regulations are the linchpin of the last administration’s program to meet the nation’s obligations to reduce climate emissions under the Paris agreement.

Davenport also reports that a power struggle has erupted in the White House between Steve Bannon, who published scores of articles bashing climate change as a hoax when he ran Breitbart, and Ivanka Trump, who thinks it would be politically boneheaded to withdraw the US from the Paris accords. According to Davenport, Rex Tillerson, the Exxon man, has formed an alliance with Ivanka in opposing Bannon. Tillerson sees withdrawal from the Paris agreement as potentially hurting the US's reputation (not to mention its honesty and commitment to the world's welfare) among other nations.

When the ex-CEO of Exxon is our best hope for saving the planet, you know we're in #TrumpNation.

The Environment Will Go To Hell, and We Will Go To War

So Trump wants to increase military spending by $54 billion and slash environmental protections and strangle the State Department, because why would you even need diplomats when the Great Negotiator is in charge, and Steve Bannon wants war with Islam?

Clean air and water? You can always buy Trump bottled water.

“I don’t know how you take $54 billion out without wholesale taking out entire departments,” said Bill Hoagland, a longtime Republican budget aide in the Senate and now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Trump's budget proposals were otherwise vague on detail, but supposedly he doesn't intend to touch Social Security or Medicare, thus giving Paul Ryan a serious nosebleed which still hasn't stopped.

But rest assured, Trump will not inflate the military like that without using it. We're going to war, folks. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon, and for the rest of our lives.

"Nobody Knew"

Trump on Sunday, in front of the nation's governors, talking about health care policy-making: “I have to tell you, it’s an unbelievably complex subject. Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

Well, what he meant of course was "I didn't know." Because he doesn't know anything about government and its complexities. And doesn't really appear educable or even really curious.

He dances on Steve Bannon's strings, and Bannon only tells him what he wants him to do or say.

Bannon's Bumptiousness

Yesterday in front of the CPAC audience -- a gathering of conservative warlords and high priestesses -- Trump's puppet-master Steve Bannon was not shy with his grandiosity: The “deconstruction of the administrative state” has just begun, Bannon declared.

“If you look at these Cabinet nominees, they were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction,” Bannon said.

How decorously he wrapped it up! But if you think a bunch of billionaires and Goldman Sachs bankers are going to smash government for the benefit of "common people," you're maybe too deep into the Kool Aid to climb out now.