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Daily Bread for 12.28.17

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see cloudy skies, an even chance of flurries, and a high of fourteen. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:28 PM, for 9h 03m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred thirteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière give the first paid public screening of a film: “[t]his history-making presentation featured 10 short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory).”

Recommended for reading in full —

Michael Morell and Mike Rogers write Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States:

Every first-year international-relations student learns about the importance of deterrence: It prevented a Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the height of the Cold War. It prevented North Korea from invading South Korea in the same time frame. Today, it keeps Iran from starting a hot war in the Middle East or other nations from initiating cyberattacks against our infrastructure.

And yet, the United States has failed to establish deterrence in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. We know we failed because Russia continues to aggressively employ the most significant aspect of its 2016 tool kit: the use of social media as a platform to disseminate propaganda designed to weaken our nation.

There is a perception among the media and general public that Russia ended its social-media operations following last year’s election and that we need worry only about future elections. But that perception is wrong. Russia’s information operations in the United States continued after the election and they continue to this day.

This should alarm everyone — Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. Foreign governments, overtly or covertly, should not be allowed to play with our democracy.

Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.

In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman….

(This should alarm everyone, but it does not alarm Trump: he benefits from Putin’s support. Putin is an organ grinder to Trump’s dancing monkey; the organ grinder variously plays a tune, offers a piece of fruit, or tugs on the tiny primate’s leash.)

Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein contend The #NeverTrump Movement Has Been Neutered (“Conservative opposition to Trump is splintered and more than a bit pessimistic about what comes next”):

President Donald Trump is ending his first year in office in a worse political position than when he entered.

Republicans have lost statehouse seats, been trounced in the two marquee gubernatorial elections, and squandered their Alabama Senate stronghold. Trump himself has seen his popularity drop, including among conservatives and even watchers of Fox News, a Trumpian media bullhorn if there ever was one.

And yet, even at this particular nadir, the conservative intellectual forces rallying against the president remain dispirited and divided. There is dispute within the ranks, not just over how best to make the case against Trump but whether there is a coherent case at all. Looking forward, they don’t see salvation. It is an article of faith among the ranks that Trump will be challenged by a Republican in the 2020 presidential election….

By contrast, conservative Conor Friedersdorf contends ‘Never Trump’ Will Be the Only Faction Still Standing When He’s Gone (“When the Republican Party’s current coalition falls apart, those who stood up to bigotry will be the only ones with the credibility to rebuild”):

And the most important and damning traits that distinguish Trump from his predecessors are his willingness to stoke animus against minority groups for political gain; the energy he has given to white supremacists; the indiscipline of his public statements; the frequency with which he blatantly lies to the public; and the unsavory characters that he brought with him into the federal government—including Stephen Bannon, Stephen Miller, and Sebastian Gorka, for starters.

Only Never Trumpers can credibly claim to stand against the moral abominations that suffused Trump’s political rise and the first year of his presidency. They alone are conserving a faction on the right that stands against deplorability in the face of a president who remains a cruelmendacious egomaniac. They alone can credibly claim to oppose racial demagoguery.

Insofar as most Republicans celebrate Trump as a success story, rather than repudiating him as an affront to basic standards of decency, they transgress against the Founding belief in the importance of character in leaders while disgracing themselves and doing shortsighted violence to the GOP’s long term prospects. To the question, “Did you oppose the man who repeatedly stoked hatred of us?” they will have to tell Hispanics, Muslims, and African Americans, “No.”

In fact, Pro-Trumpers are sullying the fiscally laissez faire party for a generation, a tragedy for those who believe in free-market economics and small government. Neither George W. Bush nor John McCain nor Mitt Romney deserved criticism they got from some quarters for alleged racial animus. But I don’t blame voters who are rooting for Republicans to be routed in Election 2018: The GOP no longer passes the threshold test of opposing open bigotry….

(One can reconcile the apparent contradiction. Suebsaeng, Stein, and Friedersdorf are all discussing an intra-conservative, intra-GOP #NeverTrump position. Suebsaeng & Stein doubt that inside-the-tent GOP opposition to Trump will be able to stop him. They’re right – it won’t be enough. Trump and Trumpism’s political end will come from a broad, majority coalition of opposition and resistance. Afterward, and only afteward, there will come some sort of responsible, second political party – whether called Republican or something else – and the #NeverTrumpers will probably find a role there, as they’ll not have been tainted and disgraced by association with Trumpism. Suebsaeng & Stein are right to contend that #NeverTrump has almost no traction now; Friedersdorf’s right to see that the conservative & GOP members of #NeverTrump will find greater influence after – but only after – a much broader opposition ruins Trump.)

Betsy Woodruff reports Robert Mueller May Indict Paul Manafort Again (“The charges against the former Trump campaign boss appear to have been only an opening salvo in a legal barrage on the president’s confidants, informed observers say”):

From its inception, two things about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation were clear: first, the White House’s biggest concern was that Mueller would follow the money; and second, Mueller is following the money.

It’s been seven months since Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ordered Bob Mueller to take over the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into possible links between the Kremlin and people associated with the Trump campaign. Trump’s lawyers have long said they expected the probe to stay focused and end quickly. Instead, Mueller has assembled a team of prosecutors with expertise in handling financial investigations and white-collar crime, and obtained guilty pleas for crimes that weren’t committed during the election year.

And, most importantly, he’s sent a thinly veiled warning to the White House: No one’s finances are off limits. If 2017 had the president’s inner circle sweating, 2018 could feel like a sauna.

And no one may feel more heat than Paul Manafort. In Washington legal circles, there’s a broad expectation that Mueller will file what’s called a superseding indictment of Manafort and Rick Gates, his erstwhile business partner—and alleged partner in crime. Gates and Manafort both pleaded not guilty when Mueller’s team filed their indictment on Oct. 30. Legal experts say there may be more charges to come.

“I would expect a superseding indictment to come down relatively soon,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University’s law school.

“There was much in the narrative of the indictment that referenced crimes not charged,” he added. “Prosecutors will often issue a superseding indictment as the grand jury continues its work. There’s also a tactical reason for this, that superseding indictments tend to grind defendants a bit more over time”….

So, How Do Bass Suck in Their Prey?

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