CHris Hayes opened referring to the shutdown as"The Ann Coulter Shutdown."

AOC was just on talking about how Mitch is nowhere to be seen.

And Dem REp. Dan Kildee just said Mitch has made Trump the majority leaders of the Senate.

EVeryone talking about how MItch is hiding.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/01/mike-pence-mike-pompeo-belong-doomsday-cult-may-trying-bring-apocalypse/

President Donald Trump’s vice president and secretary of state appear to have a conflict between their private religious beliefs and their public duties, according to a financial journalist.

Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo are each a “genuine, end-of-days, believer in the apocalypse,” and Financial Times journalist Edward Luce said their religious beliefs about the end times exerts a troubling influence on their duties.

“Generally I believe a public figure’s beliefs should be irrelevant to their job,” Luce wrote. “Whether they’re atheist, Opus Dei, Buddhist or Muslim, should have no bearing on our assessment of their fitness for office. Yet I can’t help but feel anxious that both of Donald Trump’s main global envoys, Pompeo and Pence, have a conflict between their private beliefs and what they publicly claim to be doing.”

Luce argued that both Trump administration officials were part of a “millenarian cult,” and he worried their “militant creed” would influence their public policies to spark a “final conflagration in which the righteous will vanquish the wicked.”

“Call me a serial fretter, but I don’t take comfort from the fact that Pence is a heartbeat away from being commander-in-chief,” Luce wrote. “Nor do I see Pompeo as one of the grown-ups restraining Trump. He’s an enabler, not a preventer. Where Trump goes, Pompeo will follow. Let’s hope Trump never gets religion.”

of their country." He tweeted that. He is sounding the alarm and is extremely concerned about what is happening. USed the phrase clear and present danger. Former Justice Dept. chief of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section who resigned last year.

Edited to add tweet of him saying Trump is a clear and present danger:https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1085005691763466240
(thanks to DUer Julian Englis)


February 7, 2018, WaPo

A Justice Department official who helped oversee the controversial probes of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and Russian interference in the 2016 election stepped down this week.

David Laufman, an experienced federal prosecutor who in 2014 became chief of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, said farewell to colleagues Wednesday. He cited personal reasons.

His departure from the high-pressure job comes as President Trump and his Republican allies have stepped up attacks on the Justice Department, the FBI and special counsel Robert S. Mueller III for their handling of the Russia probe.

“It’s tough to leave a mission this compelling and an institution as exceptional as the Department of Justice,” said Laufman, 59. “But I know that prosecutors and agents will continue to bring to their work precisely what the American people should expect: a fierce and relentless commitment to protect the national security of the United States.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-dept-official-who-helped-oversee-clinton-russia-probes-steps-down/2018/02/07/ab19f24e-0b69-11e8-8b0d-891602206fb7_story.html?utm_term=.f64dc3f1a3b7

Some constitutional scholars want lawmakers to try anyway.
It's a grey area, and very complex.

This article is from Sept. 2018, before Dems took the House, so that may have changed the equation.

Also, this has changed since Sept. 2018 due to the NYT bombshell:
“To overcome the privilege, Congress must provide an adequate explanation for why it needs to know what was said at the meeting. I don’t see one as of now.”

I'm sure Adam Schiff could show clear need to know at this point, but there would no doubt be court challenges, maybe even all the way to SCOTUS.

(Long snip)

"For all the murkiness about Congress’ ability to compel the president’s interpreter to testify, some legal experts urged lawmakers to push for it anyway.

“I think they should try it,” said Cristina Rodriguez, the Leighton Homer Surbeck professor of law at Yale Law School and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. “[The administration] might try to claim presidential communications privilege, but that generally refers to consultation with advisers, not to something rote like translation. The more viable channel of resistance would be to invoke the president’s power to conduct diplomacy, which Republican and Democratic administrations alike have regarded as an exclusive presidential prerogative.”

“I strongly favor this effort to subpoena the U.S. interpreter,” said Tribe. “There is a lot to gain and nothing to lose by at least seeking such testimony

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/congress-trump-interpreter-russia-putin_us_5b509f0ce4b0de86f48a8db3

ANd here is another article from July 2018:
Obama, Bush veterans dismiss Trump-Putin interpreter subpoena


Tony Fratto, who served as a White House deputy press secretary under former President George W. Bush, called it a “fruitless effort.”

“The law is clear. It would be bonkers to think this conversation doesn’t fall under executive privilege,” said Fratto, who frequently disagrees with Trump’s rhetoric and actions. “That’s not their job and the Constitution is pretty clear on that.”

Richard Fontaine, who served as a foreign policy adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and served at the NSC under Bush, also dismissed the suggestion.
“I feel their pain, but I don't think forcing the translator of the president to testify [about] what she heard will be successful,” Fontaine told The Hill, calling it “bad practice.”

“People on the Hill seem to have ever-short historical perspective, but at some point a Democrat will have a one-on-one with a leader or take a walk in the park with a leader and do you really want that?” he said. “I know they want this, but I don't know that they want that.”

Democrats say the circumstances surrounding the Trump-Putin summit are exceptional, and justify the step of having lawmakers talk to Trump’s interpreter.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/397995-obama-bush-veterans-dismiss-trump-putin-interpreter-subpoena

if T was working for Russia .

SHe's got one of the NYT reporters on right now.

she is so incredibly brilliant, informed, perceptive and asks such great questions. Was thinking that last night with AOC and when Eric Swalwell is on and any of the smart, dedicated ones who are actually public servants. Rachel clearly gets them at their level. I feel good when I see people in pursuit of the truth who get each other at their level.

to her people in the field in her district. REallly showing the impact of shutdown. Also talking about all the immigrants in NYC and how that contributes to the economy; how it affects the economy and the community when they leave because they are afraid.

about a wall that won't be built." I have the sound off but checked the picture to see if it was over yet, and that wording is plastered over the picture. ANy one else seeing this? Is it on any other networks?
Someone must have hacked into it somehow and managed to insert this over the video..... Good for them.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1081629099163074560

From Obama speechwriter David Litt’s book, “Thanks, Obama- My Hopey, Changey White House Years: A Speechwriter’s Memoir" (Really good book, by the way.)

Litt discusses preparation for the 2014 WH Correspondents’ Dinner and says:
“We also took a shot at the growing number of Republicans obsessed with Vladimir Putin. This was a truly bizarre trend. Prominent conservatives had recently begun heaping praise upon the Russian autocrat…”

Does this raise questions for anyone else? Sure did for me, given everything that has transpired since then. We already know that GOP/ Russia ties go long, deep and broad. A preview of things to come, as early as 2014? And saying “had RECENTLY begun heaping praise” to the point where Obama felt it was noteworthy enough to do a segment on it at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner? (See clip below) What happened at that time to cause GOP to start heaping praise on Putin? This was two and a half years before the 2016 election.

See Obama’s remarks at the 2014 WH Correspondents’ Dinner on Putin being “the new conservative darling” at 18:50 minutes:

While what he has to say was funny, it’s maybe not so funny now given all we know today. Another one of those too true to be truly funny things. ( Hannity, Rudy, and Mitt at a slumber party giggling over a poster of a bare-chested Putin.)