monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Interior puts science grants through political review

The Interior Department has adopted a new screening process for the discretionary grants it makes to outside groups, instructing staff to ensure those awards “promote the priorities” of the Trump administration.

The Dec. 28 directive, obtained by The Washington Post, represents the latest attempt by Trump political appointees to put their mark on government spending. Last summer, the Environmental Protection Agency instituted a system requiring that a political appointee in the public affairs office sign off on each grant before it is awarded.

Scott J. Cameron, Interior’s principal deputy assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, instructed other assistant secretaries and bureau and office heads to submit most grants and cooperative agreements for approval by one of his aides. Those include any award of at least $50,000 “to a non-profit organization that can legally engage in advocacy” or “to an institution of higher education."

He's not a witch. So I'm in favor of this decision.

The ex-British spy who authored a dossier of allegations against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was told the FBI had someone inside the Trump campaign providing agents with information, according to a newly-released transcript of a congressional interview.

Glenn R. Simpson, founder of research firm Fusion GPS, spoke to investigators with the Senate Judiciary Committee for 10 hours in August. As the partisan fight over Russian interference in the 2016 election has intensified, Simpson has urged that his testimony be released, and a copy of the transcript was made public Tuesday.

It was released by the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. That decision marks the most serious break yet in the once cooperative relationship she has had with the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa).

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Why are you against witches blatham?

"[W]hy will their four nominations consume a week of the Senate's attention? Why do we need to file cloture on each, and then exhaust the full thirty hours of debate? Because Senate Democrats are choosing -- for partisan reasons -- to make these nominations take as long as possible.

"Their goal is to waste the Senate's time and prevent the president from promptly filling judicial vacancies. 2017 was an historic year of partisan obstruction by our Democratic colleagues. Even for uncontroversial judges who went on to unanimous or near-unanimous confirmation votes, my colleagues across the aisle used every possible procedural roadblock to delay and drag their heels. Now 2018 is starting off the same way."

Is the transcript available yet?

President Trump on Tuesday appeared to endorse a sweeping immigration deal that would eventually grant millions of undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, saying he would be willing to “take the heat” politically for an approach that many of his hard-line supporters have long viewed as unacceptable.

The president made the remarks during an extended meeting with congressional Republicans and Democrats who are weighing a shorter-term agreement that would extend legal status for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. Mr. Trump has said such a deal must be accompanied by new money for a border wall and measures to limit immigrants from bringing family members into the country in the future, conditions he repeated during the meeting on Tuesday.

A University of Toronto professor's 10-year-old book is back on the bestseller list thanks to rampant public interest in Capitol Hill tell-all Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

Randall Hansen, interim director at the Munk School of Global Affairs, wrote his own Fire and Fury to chronicle an Allied bombing campaign on German civilians during the Second World War.

The similarity in titles between Hansen's book and Michael Wolff's instant bestseller about U.S. President Donald Trump means both get called up in an online search.

This would be a minefield for Trump, one demanding great care and precision in his answers. And Bauer, the former White House counsel, also points out that it would require extensive preparation. “This will require Trump’s time, attention and focus, and the lawyers will be working to produce a witness who is precise in answers and careful to answer only the questions asked and to stay on point,” Bauer tells me. “They are no doubt planning for more than one prep session.” Are those things you associate with Trump?