Congress is gone. Next week is Thanksgiving. Take a deep breath
COMING SOON: Each announcement to the Trump Administration of a Senator or Representative will create a cascading effect on Senate and House Committees. Line up coming soon. And news of the week.
Best,
Joyce
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THE FIRST WEEK OF THE LAME DUCK IS DONE – WHERE THINGS STAND MorningD “Congress left town Thursday for a weeklong Thanksgiving break, and when they return, the spending bill and National Defense Authorization Act will be at the top of the agenda. But while the NDAA appears poised for passage in December, Congress is planning to pass a continuing spending resolution through the end of March, giving the new Trump administration a chance to make its mark on the fiscal 2017 spending process.The short-term patch is aimed at giving Trump a say in next year’s funding priorities and preventing President Barack Obama from putting his mark on a massive spending deal. … House Republicans have little interest in negotiating with a lame-duck Obama. Punting to early next year, when Trump will be in the White House with a GOP Congress, will give the right more leverage to get its spending priorities and pet policy riders into law.”
TWO SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT ON DEFENSE SASC Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) was livid over the planned CR. He gave a floor speech Thursday blasting congressional leaders for failing to pass a defense appropriations bill and relying on a CR that “would lock our military into last year’s budget and last year’s priorities. THE WAR SUPPLEMENTAL STILL COULD MOVE IN THE LAME DUCK: The Obama administration has also requested an additional $11.6 billion in war funding for Afghanistan and Iraq. House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers said he and his colleagues would try to deliver those funds in the lame-duck session.
NDAA WATCH “House and Senate negotiators putting the finishing touches on the new defense policy bill are ditching the controversial riders that could draw a presidential veto. The final version of the NDAA will not include provisions dealing with the greater sage grouse or workplace protections based on sexual orientation, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The provisions were two of the major sticking points between the House and Senate versions of the bill and were part of the reason Armed Services leaders were unable to strike an accord in September. … Committee aides and leaders cautioned that nothing was officially finalized until the entire bill was completed. But one House Armed Services member said they’ve been told negotiations on issues where the two chambers differed are all wrapped up. ‘It’s done,’ the lawmaker said. ‘There’s no more negotiations, even on the small stuff.'”
WHEN WILL THE FINAL BILL BE RELEASED? House and Senate leaders have no reason to wrap up negotiations and put out the conference report until Congress returns after Thanksgiving, not to mention they need to collect signatures from lawmakers who have left town. But it’s a likely item for Congress to take up that first week back.
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FIRST 100 DAYS The Daily 202 “The GOP now has a lot on its plate for the first 100 days. Many Republicans in the Capitol are talking about trying to use reconciliation to repeal Obamacare in January. Trump has suggested his top priority will be an infrastructure spending package. Trump’s appointees need to get confirmed. Attorney General-designee Jeff Sessions, whose nomination to a federal judgeship was blocked in the 1980s by a bipartisan group of senators because of alleged racist comments he had made as U.S. attorney, will not be able to coast through the Judiciary Committee, despite the fact he is a member. (In fact, that actually hurts his prospects – because he cannot vote for himself.)
Much more importantly, because it will shape the country for a generation, the president-elect must quickly decide on a Supreme Court pick. A bunch of the names on his list of 21 could face heavy resistance.
Yesterday Trump made his first stamp on Congress as House Republicans bowed to his wishes and announced plans to extend government funding through March, despite warnings from top GOP senators that such a short-term spending strategy will wreak havoc on the first several months of his presidency. In addition to the big-ticket items, Trump will now need to negotiate a bill to fund the government. This could wind up wasting a lot of time and blunting any early momentum he might get. Politically-savvy Republican lawmakers on the Hill are baffled by the decision to pass only a three-month C.R., instead of clearing the deck. Trump allies argue that they’ll have more leverage without needing to deal with Obama, and they bet that Democrats will never allow a shutdown. But, here again, they will own the outcome of the spending fight.
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THE POTTERY BARN RULE The Daily 202 “The metaphor of the moment is that Donald Trump is the dog that caught up with the car. …The truth is that almost no one on his own team thought he could win. They planned, or didn’t plan, accordingly. A more apt reference, especially after Trump’s inauguration, might be the Pottery Barn Rule. Colin Powell popularized this doctrine in the foreign policy context. The then-secretary of state warned George W. Bush about the consequences of invading Iraq: “You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all.” As Bob Woodward recounted in a 2004 book, “Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.” Trump and the congressional Republicans … are responsible for what happens from now on. There is now no one to blame if they can’t pass budgets, avoid shutdowns, deal with sequestration, replace Obamacare, destroy ISIS or reverse the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs. If climate change gets worse, it’s on them. If Syria continues its downward spiral, it’s on them. If more countries acquire nuclear weapons, it’s on them. It may be totally unfair, but that’s the way our system works. ‘
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THE SUPREME COURT – “GOP could nuke filibuster for Supreme Court nominees Politico “Top Senate Republicans are drawing a hard line on the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that no matter what tactics Democrats deploy, they will be forced to swallow Donald Trump’s imminent nominee to the high court. Republicans won’t come out and say it, but there’s an implicit threat in their confidence: If Democrats play things the wrong way, they might find themselves on the wrong end of a legacy-defining change to Senate rules that scraps the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to confirm Supreme Court nominees.”
6 SENATE REPUBLICANS WHO COULD MAKE LIFE DIFFICULT FOR DONALD TRUMP The Fix “After they install a ninth Supreme Court justice, the GOP will control all three branches of government. So it stands to reason that whoever plays a pivotal role in blocking President Trump would be Republican, too. In some cases, all it will take is a few Republicans in Congress to derail his agenda, especially when it comes to the Senate approving his appointees in the critical first few days of his presidency … basically Democrats would need to win over just three Republicans to block Trump’s appointees. Here’s a list of six Republicans poised to make Trump’s life very difficult, should they choose: CLICK HERE
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AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE DEFICITS? WILL THEY MATTER? Daily 202 “The GOP has a long history of only caring about the national debt during election years and when they are out of power. Fiscal discipline has tended to go out the window when they’re the ones who get to write the checks. Ronald “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” Dick Cheney reportedly said in 2002 as he pushed for a second round of Bush tax cuts at the same time that the government was ramping up expenditures for the war on terror, homeland security and Iraq.
When Reagan took office, the size of the national debt was $1.1 trillion. When he left, it was $2.9 trillion. The debt increased by more than $5 trillion during Bush 43’s presidency. Nothing in Trump’s business record, which includes six bankruptcies, suggests he will be a deficit hawk. If Trump was still a Democrat, which he was the last time Republicans ran Washington, many GOP lawmakers would loudly worry about this. But we’re already seeing some of the likeliest conservative dissidents fall in line.The influence and intellectual integrity of conservative outside groups will be tested as never before in the coming months, from the Koch political network to Heritage Action and the Club for Growth. The GOP relentlessly attacked Obama’s “stimulus” in 2009, turning it into a dirty word, but it looks like the party is about to get behind the same sort of massive infrastructure spending. There is also a push by Republican members in the House to bring back earmarks, though it has been put off for now.”
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SCHUMER IS NEXT TOP SENATE DEMOCRAT WashPo “Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was elected as the next leader of Senate Democrats on Wednesday, establishing him as one of his party’s most senior officials in Washington and Democrats’ primary partisan counterweight to a Trump administration. Schumer promised a “bigger, bolder, sharper-edged economic message” in his first remarks after his election and said Democrats would remain focused on the middle class “and those struggling to join it. We heard the American people loud and clear,” he said. “They felt that the government wasn’t working for them. They felt that the economy was rigged against them in many places and that the government was too beholden to big money and special interests.In a gesture to his party’s progressive wing, Schumer added Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to a junior role in his newly expanded leadership team.”
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COULD NANCY PELOSI’S LEADERSHIP REALLY BE IN TROUBLE? The Fix ” “To some newer House Democrats, the status quo starts with Pelosi, who’s been leader for almost 10 years. From their perspective, it may not be entirely her fault … but Democrats are at such a low point, some don’t see any other option but to kick out the old and try the new — whatever that may be. … And that’s probably the best explanation for why Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) announced Thursday that he’s challenging the minority leader for House Democrats’ top job. It’s a long-shot bid, so it’s really more a shot across the bow to Pelosi. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE CURRENT LEADERSHIP? According to Ryan, “They keep losing. … We’ve lost 68 House races since 2010,” Ryan went on to say. “We have the smallest majority since 1929 in our caucus. If you take state, federal officials, we have the smallest numbers since Reconstruction. If that’s not a call for doing something differently, I don’t know what is In other words, House Democrats are having a generational and regional — not ideological or personal — struggle right now. It’s not clear what role, if any, Pelosi directly played in Democrats’s electoral struggles. But what is clear is that as redistricting and polarization shrink the number of seats in play for Democrats, the party’s leadership appears to be shrinking to older members on the coast. The Post’s James Hohmann recently pointed out in his Daily 202 newsletter that two-thirds of congressional Democrats come from the coasts, including House Democrats’ top three leader, who are also all over 70.”The top three Democrats in leadership are 76 (Pelosi), 77 (Steny Hoyer) and 76 (Jim Clyburn). The top three Republican leaders, in contrast, are 46 (Paul Ryan), 51 (Kevin McCarthy) and 51 (Steve Scalise).” Enter Tim Ryan. In addition to being younger (43), Ryan is also from a region that could be considered ground zero for Democrats’ shrinking influence. As The Post’s Paul Kane points out, the county anchoring his Youngstown-area district is an old steel manufacturing town that President Obama won in 2012 by 30,000 votes. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by 3,000 votes.
That said, Pelosi is handily expected to win reelection to lead House Democrats in a secret-ballot election Nov. 30.
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FROM REALITY TV STAR TO REALITY PRESIDENT Politico “Donald Trump is compulsively improvisational and ran the most successful back-of-the-napkin operation in American political history, but the challenge confronting him is, by his own admission, nothing like anything anybody has ever faced. … judging from his public pronouncements and a slightly dizzy “60 Minutes” appearance, he still seems to be grappling with the vast implications of his stunning and unexpected victory. Repeal and Replace Obamacare? Sure, but only if some version of the prohibition against discrimination of patients with pre-existing conditions is preserved. Lock her up? Not a big priority. Let’s talk infrastructure, he says. Drain the swamp of “lobbyists and special interests”? Eventually, but not right away. The threat to re-evaluate security partnerships with allies like South Korea? One call to Seoul cleared that up on the eve of his victory — he reiterated in standard presidentese his commitment to maintain the status quo. That deportation force that will forcefully eject millions of illegal south-of-the-border types? That’s been modified, in the course of several interviews, to a more moderate plan to more aggressively catch and punish illegals who commit crimes here. How about the 800,000 college students who might deported if Trump repeals Obama’s 2012 executive order? Priebus, Trump’s new right hand, told MSNBC the day after the election: “He’s not calling for mass deportation”; not a mass rollback of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But the biggest nonshocker came on Sunday night when “60 Minutes” host Lesley Stahl asked Trump whether he still planned to build his big beautiful wall with Mexico — or whether less drastic measures will do.”[In] certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction, [but] there could be some fencing.”
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DNI SHAKE-UP – CLAPPER SUBMITS HIS RESIGNATION Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that he has submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama and will not stay on past the transition to Donald Trump.
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CUE THE THEME SONG FOR THE ‘ODD COUPLE” – REINCE AND BANNON Politico “Can two men who want to dictate the direction of the Republican Party share a West Wing without driving each other (or Trump) crazy? On Sunday, the campaign announced the not-unexpected news that Republican National Committee Chairman Priebus — one of the few mainstream GOP leaders to remain (mostly) loyal through Trump’s darkest days — would be awarded the most powerful job next to the presidency, Chief of Staff. Steve Bannon, the enigmatic Trump Whisperer who runs Breitbart, an alt-right news/propaganda emporium that has been accused of anti-Semitism, racism and sexism, was given the important but subsidiary position of chief strategist and counselor.
STEVE BANNON’S DANGEROUS CAMPAIGN TO REBRAND RACISM AS AMERICAN “NATIONALISM” Quarz “In just over two months’ time, US president-elect Donald Trump will settle into the Oval Office … just down the hall will sit the man who, perhaps more than anyone else, helped steer Trump toward the White House: Steve Bannon, erstwhile executive chairman of the conservative [sic] news site Breitbart and Trump campaign CEO, tapped earlier this week as Trump’s chief strategist.
Over the past week, Bannon has metamorphosed from background actor to household name. …Questions remain regarding Bannon’s true beliefs and desired political outcomes. … The immediate answer as to whether or not Bannon is a white nationalist is—with numerous caveats—no. Or at least, he has taken pains not to identify as one. Unlike the most outspoken white nationalists Bannon has never espoused either immediate or future desires to expel non-whites from the US. Those close to Bannon also disavow claims about his racist and misogynist attitudes, which often single out Muslims, women, and Jews.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Bannon has also spent a good amount of time helping to rebrand the so-called alt-right—that murk of internet trolls, anti-establishmentarians, and avowed white supremacists to whom Bannon’s Breitbart caters. By referring to this group as nationalists as opposed to white nationalists or white supremacists, Bannon has also been able to argue that US nationalism is similar to a series of counterparts in Europe. These parallels are used both to legitimize the movement, and to help muster international backing. While the distinction between nationalism and white nationalism may seem like splitting hairs from a liberal perspective, the shift is important—and arguably makes Bannon even more dangerous. Underlying the misogyny, Islamophobia and bigotry of the Trump campaign is a statist approach to nationalism that professes to include any and all peoples and faiths—so long as white Protestants remain, as it were, first among equals. “I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors,” Bannon said in 2014, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward.”
Stephen Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August.
Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August. Stephen Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August.
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TO BE ANNOUNCED …
SESSIONS TAPPED AS ATTORNEY GENERAL: President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general, according to transition official Sean Spicer. … Sessions was bandied about for defense secretary or secretary of homeland security, but ultimately his focus in the Senate on illegal immigration – and hard-line views that align with Trump’s – led him to be selected to lead the Justice Department. But Sessions’ confirmation is likely to be a fight, even though he’s a senator, and it could turn ugly. His critics are expected to seize on his failed confirmation three decades ago, when the Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination over accusations he had called the NAACP “un-American” and addressed a black lawyer as “boy.”
THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER — LT. GEN. MICHAEL T. FLYNN … former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, retired general with three stars and a chip on his shoulder … tapped … to be White House national security adviser, the most influential national security job in the still-forming Trump administration. Flynn helped dismantle insurgent networks in Afghanistan and Iraq but then surprised — and sometimes dismayed — colleagues by joining the political insurgency led by Donald Trump. WaPo’s “Flynn stunned former colleagues when he traveled to Moscow last year to appear alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a lavish gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT. Former U.S. officials said Flynn, seen dining next to Putin in photos published by Russian propaganda outlets, was used as a prop by the autocratic leader.” AND WHAT ABOUT HIS SON. HIS CHIEF OF STAFFCNN “Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, shared stories alleging top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, pushed a conspiracy theory that Sen. Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who abused cocaine, and repeatedly used expletives to attack Trump’s political opponents. … The younger Flynn serves as his father’s chief of staff and top aide, attending events alongside his father and working for his father’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group. … After the 2012 election, Flynn tweeted that minorities only voted for President Barack Obama because of his skin color.” HOW FLYNN BECAME AMERICA’S ANGRIEST GENERAL He was one of the most respected intelligence officers of his generation. Now he’s Donald Trump’s national security alter ego, goading a crowd to lock Hillary Clinton up. What happened? Read article in Politico Magazine Article
Jon Favreau …@jonfavs) “Flynn has said that Islam is ‘cancer,’ and that fear of Muslims is ‘rational.'” … @RyanLizza: “Trump’s incoming NSC adviser retweeted a Breitbart headline about how Obama hates Christians” … @georgelittledc, a former CIA and Pentagon spokesman: “So the new national security advisor blocked me on Twitter after challenging his views. I wonder how he’ll handle the WH Situation Room.”
CONGRESS AND THE NSC: Of course, it doesn’t matter much what Congress thinks: The national security adviser doesn’t require confirmation. Ironically, however, Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have included provisions in the defense authorization bills to curb the NSC with caps on staff and a possible Senate confirmation requirement – measures taken in response to President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. We’ll see if they make the final version of the bill.”
POMPEO HEADED TO CIA: Trump is making it a hat trick of appointments by naming Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who has served on the House Intelligence Committee as well as the Benghazi Select Committee, as CIA director.”
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WHY TRUMP’S KIDS IN THE WHITE HOUSE IS A PROBLEM The Fix “In case there was any doubt, the last 24 hours have sealed it: Donald Trump’s family will play a big role in his presidency, if they have anything to say about it.That’s problematic for a host of reasons. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, appeared in photos of the president-elect’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday. And the NYTs is reporting that Kushner may test the legal bounds of what he’s allowed and attempt to join the Trump administration.
The revelations follow a series of controversies involving Trump’s family over the past week. First, Trump’s lawyer said that the president-elect’s fortune would be put in the hands of his three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump. The following day, all three were named to Trump’s transition team, helping him pick who will run his administration. Then it was reported that the high-level security clearances were being sought for those three children and Trump’s son-in-law — something the Trump campaign eventually denied.
The first move was already questionable, since it’s customary for wealthy politicians like Trump to set up true blind trusts in which they have no real control over their fortunes and don’t know how the decisions they make might enrich themselves. And just about everything since then suggests there will be no real firewall between Trump’s presidency and his kids; if anything, they might be more involved than we previously thought and certainly more involved than just about any previous presidential children. Even if Kushner is the only one to technically join the administration — and it remains an open question of whether he can — the presence of Trump’s children on his transition team and at a high-profile meeting with top world leaders shows just how Trump plans to involve his family in his presidency. WHY IS THIS SUCH A BIG DEAL, PEOPLE? It traces back to the Kennedys. After President John F. Kennedy appointed his 35-year-old brother, Robert, as attorney general — a basically unprecedented move at the time, involving an office for which few thought the younger Kennedy was qualified — Congress in 1967 passed an anti-nepotism law. It reads:
A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official.
But it’s not completely clear whether this law applies specifically to White House staff. In other words, Kushner certainly couldn’t be a Cabinet secretary, but the Trump team seems to think he could be an adviser. … One could argue that the Trump kids serving on the transition team doesn’t give them direct control over the levers of government that could affect their fortune. But Kushner would have access to those levers and have potential knowledge of Trump’s fortune that Trump himself is not supposed to have. And Ivanka Trump sitting in on meetings with high-profile world leaders only compounds the possible conflicts of interest. So, yes, having Trump’s children so close to his presidency is already ethically and legally questionable. And tasking them with controlling his fortune while he’s in office and potentially giving one of their spouses an official role in his presidency makes all of this very dicey.
But Trump seems to be ignoring the doubters and pressing forward. We’ll see how far he can take it.
FIRST AMENDMENT UPDATE Politico “Frustrated and on edge at Trump Tower: More than a week after the election, the media is still locked out,”
(Reporters stake out the lobby of Trump Tower.)
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KEEPING TRUMP HONEST WashPo “President-elect Donald Trump claimed credit on Thursday for keeping a Ford plant in Kentucky from moving to Mexico. But the company never planned to move the entire plant, only one of its production lines.” …
— @realDonaldTrump : “Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky – no Mexico … I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”
FROM FORD “Ford has never announced plans to move to Mexico either its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, which produces the Lincoln Navigator, or the Louisville Assembly Plant, which produces the Lincoln MKC and the Ford Escape. In a statement on Thursday night, following Trump’s tweet, the company said it had told Trump it would cancel a plan to shift production of a single model – the MKC – from Kentucky to Mexico. The company last year indicated it would be moving MKC production out of Louisville, though it did not announce where it was going. At the time, union leaders said the shift would not cost any jobs in Kentucky, because Escape production would replace lost MKC production.”
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CALLING ALL DEMOCRATS Politico “Hillary Clinton’s attack dog David Brock is launching his own Koch-brothers-like donor network to finance attacks on President-elect Donald Trump and to rebuild the political left after Trump’s stunning victory over Clinton last week. Brock on Thursday night emailed more than 200 of the biggest donors on the left – including finance titans George Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman – inviting them to a retreat in Palm Beach over inauguration weekend to assess what Democrats did wrong in 2016, figure out how to correct it and raise cash for those initiatives.”
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DIGITAL GOLD RUSH IMPACTED ELECTION (An Article from Nov 4th, Pre-Election) BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline. For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.
Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish[ed] aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US.
The young Macedonians who run these sites say they don’t care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: … Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters. As a result, this strange hub of pro-Trump sites in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [played] a significant role in propagating the kind of false and misleading content that was identified in a recent BuzzFeed News analysis of hyperpartisan Facebook pages. These sites open a window into the economic incentives behind producing misinformation specifically for the wealthiest advertising markets and specifically for Facebook, the world’s largest social network, as well as within online advertising networks such as Google AdSense. GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK BAN FAKE NEWS WEBSITES FROM THEIR ADVERTISING NETWORKS Technews “While it would have been nice to tackle this issue before the election, Google and Facebook are finally taking a tiny step in order to fight back against fake news. According to multiple statements, both companies have updated their policies to ban fake news sites from using Facebook’s and Google’s advertising networks. … We’re not talking about opinion articles — we’re talking about reports spreading blatantly inaccurate information. By removing a potential revenue stream, it makes the business of fake news a bit less lucrative.
FIRST 100 DAYS The Daily 202 “The GOP now has a lot on its plate for the first 100 days. Many Republicans in the Capitol are talking about trying to use reconciliation to repeal Obamacare in January. Trump has suggested his top priority will be an infrastructure spending package. Trump’s appointees need to get confirmed. Attorney General-designee Jeff Sessions, whose nomination to a federal judgeship was blocked in the 1980s by a bipartisan group of senators because of alleged racist comments he had made as U.S. attorney, will not be able to coast through the Judiciary Committee, despite the fact he is a member. (In fact, that actually hurts his prospects – because he cannot vote for himself.)
Much more importantly, because it will shape the country for a generation, the president-elect must quickly decide on a Supreme Court pick. A bunch of the names on his list of 21 could face heavy resistance.
Yesterday Trump made his first stamp on Congress as House Republicans bowed to his wishes and announced plans to extend government funding through March, despite warnings from top GOP senators that such a short-term spending strategy will wreak havoc on the first several months of his presidency. In addition to the big-ticket items, Trump will now need to negotiate a bill to fund the government. This could wind up wasting a lot of time and blunting any early momentum he might get. Politically-savvy Republican lawmakers on the Hill are baffled by the decision to pass only a three-month C.R., instead of clearing the deck. Trump allies argue that they’ll have more leverage without needing to deal with Obama, and they bet that Democrats will never allow a shutdown. But, here again, they will own the outcome of the spending fight.
THE POTTERY BARN RULE The Daily 202 “The metaphor of the moment is that Donald Trump is the dog that caught up with the car. …The truth is that almost no one on his own team thought he could win. They planned, or didn’t plan, accordingly. A more apt reference, especially after Trump’s inauguration, might be the Pottery Barn Rule. Colin Powell popularized this doctrine in the foreign policy context. The then-secretary of state warned George W. Bush about the consequences of invading Iraq: “You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people. You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You’ll own it all.” As Bob Woodward recounted in a 2004 book, “Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it.” Trump and the congressional Republicans … are responsible for what happens from now on. There is now no one to blame if they can’t pass budgets, avoid shutdowns, deal with sequestration, replace Obamacare, destroy ISIS or reverse the continuing loss of manufacturing jobs. If climate change gets worse, it’s on them. If Syria continues its downward spiral, it’s on them. If more countries acquire nuclear weapons, it’s on them. It may be totally unfair, but that’s the way our system works. ‘
THE SUPREME COURT – “GOP could nuke filibuster for Supreme Court nominees Politico “Top Senate Republicans are drawing a hard line on the Supreme Court, guaranteeing that no matter what tactics Democrats deploy, they will be forced to swallow Donald Trump’s imminent nominee to the high court. Republicans won’t come out and say it, but there’s an implicit threat in their confidence: If Democrats play things the wrong way, they might find themselves on the wrong end of a legacy-defining change to Senate rules that scraps the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to confirm Supreme Court nominees.”
6 SENATE REPUBLICANS WHO COULD MAKE LIFE DIFFICULT FOR DONALD TRUMP The Fix “After they install a ninth Supreme Court justice, the GOP will control all three branches of government. So it stands to reason that whoever plays a pivotal role in blocking President Trump would be Republican, too. In some cases, all it will take is a few Republicans in Congress to derail his agenda, especially when it comes to the Senate approving his appointees in the critical first few days of his presidency … basically Democrats would need to win over just three Republicans to block Trump’s appointees. Here’s a list of six Republicans poised to make Trump’s life very difficult, should they choose: CLICK HERE
AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE DEFICITS? WILL THEY MATTER? Daily 202 “The GOP has a long history of only caring about the national debt during election years and when they are out of power. Fiscal discipline has tended to go out the window when they’re the ones who get to write the checks. Ronald “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” Dick Cheney reportedly said in 2002 as he pushed for a second round of Bush tax cuts at the same time that the government was ramping up expenditures for the war on terror, homeland security and Iraq.
When Reagan took office, the size of the national debt was $1.1 trillion. When he left, it was $2.9 trillion. The debt increased by more than $5 trillion during Bush 43’s presidency. Nothing in Trump’s business record, which includes six bankruptcies, suggests he will be a deficit hawk. If Trump was still a Democrat, which he was the last time Republicans ran Washington, many GOP lawmakers would loudly worry about this. But we’re already seeing some of the likeliest conservative dissidents fall in line.The influence and intellectual integrity of conservative outside groups will be tested as never before in the coming months, from the Koch political network to Heritage Action and the Club for Growth. The GOP relentlessly attacked Obama’s “stimulus” in 2009, turning it into a dirty word, but it looks like the party is about to get behind the same sort of massive infrastructure spending. There is also a push by Republican members in the House to bring back earmarks, though it has been put off for now.”
SCHUMER IS NEXT TOP SENATE DEMOCRAT WashPo “Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) was elected as the next leader of Senate Democrats on Wednesday, establishing him as one of his party’s most senior officials in Washington and Democrats’ primary partisan counterweight to a Trump administration. Schumer promised a “bigger, bolder, sharper-edged economic message” in his first remarks after his election and said Democrats would remain focused on the middle class “and those struggling to join it. We heard the American people loud and clear,” he said. “They felt that the government wasn’t working for them. They felt that the economy was rigged against them in many places and that the government was too beholden to big money and special interests.In a gesture to his party’s progressive wing, Schumer added Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to a junior role in his newly expanded leadership team.”
COULD NANCY PELOSI’S LEADERSHIP REALLY BE IN TROUBLE? The Fix ” “To some newer House Democrats, the status quo starts with Pelosi, who’s been leader for almost 10 years. From their perspective, it may not be entirely her fault … but Democrats are at such a low point, some don’t see any other option but to kick out the old and try the new — whatever that may be. … And that’s probably the best explanation for why Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) announced Thursday that he’s challenging the minority leader for House Democrats’ top job. It’s a long-shot bid, so it’s really more a shot across the bow to Pelosi. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE CURRENT LEADERSHIP? According to Ryan, “They keep losing. … We’ve lost 68 House races since 2010,” Ryan went on to say. “We have the smallest majority since 1929 in our caucus. If you take state, federal officials, we have the smallest numbers since Reconstruction. If that’s not a call for doing something differently, I don’t know what is In other words, House Democrats are having a generational and regional — not ideological or personal — struggle right now. It’s not clear what role, if any, Pelosi directly played in Democrats’s electoral struggles. But what is clear is that as redistricting and polarization shrink the number of seats in play for Democrats, the party’s leadership appears to be shrinking to older members on the coast. The Post’s James Hohmann recently pointed out in his Daily 202 newsletter that two-thirds of congressional Democrats come from the coasts, including House Democrats’ top three leader, who are also all over 70.”The top three Democrats in leadership are 76 (Pelosi), 77 (Steny Hoyer) and 76 (Jim Clyburn). The top three Republican leaders, in contrast, are 46 (Paul Ryan), 51 (Kevin McCarthy) and 51 (Steve Scalise).” Enter Tim Ryan. In addition to being younger (43), Ryan is also from a region that could be considered ground zero for Democrats’ shrinking influence. As The Post’s Paul Kane points out, the county anchoring his Youngstown-area district is an old steel manufacturing town that President Obama won in 2012 by 30,000 votes. Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 by 3,000 votes.
That said, Pelosi is handily expected to win reelection to lead House Democrats in a secret-ballot election Nov. 30.
FROM REALITY TV STAR TO REALITY PRESIDENT Politico “Donald Trump is compulsively improvisational and ran the most successful back-of-the-napkin operation in American political history, but the challenge confronting him is, by his own admission, nothing like anything anybody has ever faced. … judging from his public pronouncements and a slightly dizzy “60 Minutes” appearance, he still seems to be grappling with the vast implications of his stunning and unexpected victory. Repeal and Replace Obamacare? Sure, but only if some version of the prohibition against discrimination of patients with pre-existing conditions is preserved. Lock her up? Not a big priority. Let’s talk infrastructure, he says. Drain the swamp of “lobbyists and special interests”? Eventually, but not right away. The threat to re-evaluate security partnerships with allies like South Korea? One call to Seoul cleared that up on the eve of his victory — he reiterated in standard presidentese his commitment to maintain the status quo. That deportation force that will forcefully eject millions of illegal south-of-the-border types? That’s been modified, in the course of several interviews, to a more moderate plan to more aggressively catch and punish illegals who commit crimes here. How about the 800,000 college students who might deported if Trump repeals Obama’s 2012 executive order? Priebus, Trump’s new right hand, told MSNBC the day after the election: “He’s not calling for mass deportation”; not a mass rollback of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. But the biggest nonshocker came on Sunday night when “60 Minutes” host Lesley Stahl asked Trump whether he still planned to build his big beautiful wall with Mexico — or whether less drastic measures will do.”[In] certain areas, a wall is more appropriate,” he said “I’m very good at this, it’s called construction, [but] there could be some fencing.”
DNI SHAKE-UP – CLAPPER SUBMITS HIS RESIGNATION Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday that he has submitted his resignation to President Barack Obama and will not stay on past the transition to Donald Trump.
CUE THE THEME SONG FOR THE ‘ODD COUPLE” – REINCE AND BANNON Politico “Can two men who want to dictate the direction of the Republican Party share a West Wing without driving each other (or Trump) crazy? On Sunday, the campaign announced the not-unexpected news that Republican National Committee Chairman Priebus — one of the few mainstream GOP leaders to remain (mostly) loyal through Trump’s darkest days — would be awarded the most powerful job next to the presidency, Chief of Staff. Steve Bannon, the enigmatic Trump Whisperer who runs Breitbart, an alt-right news/propaganda emporium that has been accused of anti-Semitism, racism and sexism, was given the important but subsidiary position of chief strategist and counselor.
STEVE BANNON’S DANGEROUS CAMPAIGN TO REBRAND RACISM AS AMERICAN “NATIONALISM” Quarz “In just over two months’ time, US president-elect Donald Trump will settle into the Oval Office … just down the hall will sit the man who, perhaps more than anyone else, helped steer Trump toward the White House: Steve Bannon, erstwhile executive chairman of the conservative [sic] news site Breitbart and Trump campaign CEO, tapped earlier this week as Trump’s chief strategist.
Over the past week, Bannon has metamorphosed from background actor to household name. …Questions remain regarding Bannon’s true beliefs and desired political outcomes. … The immediate answer as to whether or not Bannon is a white nationalist is—with numerous caveats—no. Or at least, he has taken pains not to identify as one. Unlike the most outspoken white nationalists Bannon has never espoused either immediate or future desires to expel non-whites from the US. Those close to Bannon also disavow claims about his racist and misogynist attitudes, which often single out Muslims, women, and Jews.
But here’s where it gets tricky. Bannon has also spent a good amount of time helping to rebrand the so-called alt-right—that murk of internet trolls, anti-establishmentarians, and avowed white supremacists to whom Bannon’s Breitbart caters. By referring to this group as nationalists as opposed to white nationalists or white supremacists, Bannon has also been able to argue that US nationalism is similar to a series of counterparts in Europe. These parallels are used both to legitimize the movement, and to help muster international backing. While the distinction between nationalism and white nationalism may seem like splitting hairs from a liberal perspective, the shift is important—and arguably makes Bannon even more dangerous. Underlying the misogyny, Islamophobia and bigotry of the Trump campaign is a statist approach to nationalism that professes to include any and all peoples and faiths—so long as white Protestants remain, as it were, first among equals. “I think strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors,” Bannon said in 2014, and that is really the building blocks that built Western Europe and the United States, and I think it’s what can see us forward.”
Stephen Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August. – See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/bannon-mum-breitbart-ties-experts-see-conflicts-aplenty#sthash.iPf4X9nR.dpuf
Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August. – See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/bannon-mum-breitbart-ties-experts-see-conflicts-aplenty#sthash.iPf4X9nR.dpuf
Stephen Bannon, set to become a top White House aide to President-elect Donald Trump, is mum on whether he will sever ties with the conservative news organization he oversaw. But experts say statutes and traditions should lead him to do just that.
Trump’s transition office on Sunday announced that Bannon, executive chairman of Breitbart News, will be chief White House strategist and senior counselor to the president. Bannon took a leave of absence from Breitbart when he joined Trump’s campaign in August. – See more at: http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/bannon-mum-breitbart-ties-experts-see-conflicts-aplenty#sthash.iPf4X9nR.dpuf
TO BE ANNOUNCED …
SESSIONS TAPPED AS ATTORNEY GENERAL: President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general, according to transition official Sean Spicer. … Sessions was bandied about for defense secretary or secretary of homeland security, but ultimately his focus in the Senate on illegal immigration – and hard-line views that align with Trump’s – led him to be selected to lead the Justice Department. But Sessions’ confirmation is likely to be a fight, even though he’s a senator, and it could turn ugly. His critics are expected to seize on his failed confirmation three decades ago, when the Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination over accusations he had called the NAACP “un-American” and addressed a black lawyer as “boy.”
THE NEXT NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER — LT. GEN. MICHAEL T. FLYNN … former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, retired general with three stars and a chip on his shoulder … tapped … to be White House national security adviser, the most influential national security job in the still-forming Trump administration. Flynn helped dismantle insurgent networks in Afghanistan and Iraq but then surprised — and sometimes dismayed — colleagues by joining the political insurgency led by Donald Trump. WaPo’s “Flynn stunned former colleagues when he traveled to Moscow last year to appear alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin at a lavish gala for the Kremlin-run propaganda channel RT. Former U.S. officials said Flynn, seen dining next to Putin in photos published by Russian propaganda outlets, was used as a prop by the autocratic leader.” AND WHAT ABOUT HIS SON. HIS CHIEF OF STAFFCNN “Flynn’s son, Michael G. Flynn, shared stories alleging top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, pushed a conspiracy theory that Sen. Marco Rubio was a closeted homosexual who abused cocaine, and repeatedly used expletives to attack Trump’s political opponents. … The younger Flynn serves as his father’s chief of staff and top aide, attending events alongside his father and working for his father’s consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group. … After the 2012 election, Flynn tweeted that minorities only voted for President Barack Obama because of his skin color.” HOW FLYNN BECAME AMERICA’S ANGRIEST GENERAL He was one of the most respected intelligence officers of his generation. Now he’s Donald Trump’s national security alter ego, goading a crowd to lock Hillary Clinton up. What happened? Read article in Politico Magazine Article
Jon Favreau …@jonfavs) “Flynn has said that Islam is ‘cancer,’ and that fear of Muslims is ‘rational.'” … @RyanLizza: “Trump’s incoming NSC adviser retweeted a Breitbart headline about how Obama hates Christians” … @georgelittledc, a former CIA and Pentagon spokesman: “So the new national security advisor blocked me on Twitter after challenging his views. I wonder how he’ll handle the WH Situation Room.”
CONGRESS AND THE NSC: Of course, it doesn’t matter much what Congress thinks: The national security adviser doesn’t require confirmation. Ironically, however, Republicans on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees have included provisions in the defense authorization bills to curb the NSC with caps on staff and a possible Senate confirmation requirement – measures taken in response to President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. We’ll see if they make the final version of the bill.”
POMPEO HEADED TO CIA: Trump is making it a hat trick of appointments by naming Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who has served on the House Intelligence Committee as well as the Benghazi Select Committee, as CIA director.”
WHY TRUMP’S KIDS IN THE WHITE HOUSE IS A PROBLEM The Fix “In case there was any doubt, the last 24 hours have sealed it: Donald Trump’s family will play a big role in his presidency, if they have anything to say about it.That’s problematic for a host of reasons. Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, appeared in photos of the president-elect’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday. And the NYTs is reporting that Kushner may test the legal bounds of what he’s allowed and attempt to join the Trump administration.
The revelations follow a series of controversies involving Trump’s family over the past week. First, Trump’s lawyer said that the president-elect’s fortune would be put in the hands of his three oldest children — Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric Trump. The following day, all three were named to Trump’s transition team, helping him pick who will run his administration. Then it was reported that the high-level security clearances were being sought for those three children and Trump’s son-in-law — something the Trump campaign eventually denied.
The first move was already questionable, since it’s customary for wealthy politicians like Trump to set up true blind trusts in which they have no real control over their fortunes and don’t know how the decisions they make might enrich themselves. And just about everything since then suggests there will be no real firewall between Trump’s presidency and his kids; if anything, they might be more involved than we previously thought and certainly more involved than just about any previous presidential children. Even if Kushner is the only one to technically join the administration — and it remains an open question of whether he can — the presence of Trump’s children on his transition team and at a high-profile meeting with top world leaders shows just how Trump plans to involve his family in his presidency. WHY IS THIS SUCH A BIG DEAL, PEOPLE? It traces back to the Kennedys. After President John F. Kennedy appointed his 35-year-old brother, Robert, as attorney general — a basically unprecedented move at the time, involving an office for which few thought the younger Kennedy was qualified — Congress in 1967 passed an anti-nepotism law. It reads:
A public official may not appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position in the agency in which he is serving or over which he exercises jurisdiction or control any individual who is a relative of the public official.
But it’s not completely clear whether this law applies specifically to White House staff. In other words, Kushner certainly couldn’t be a Cabinet secretary, but the Trump team seems to think he could be an adviser. … One could argue that the Trump kids serving on the transition team doesn’t give them direct control over the levers of government that could affect their fortune. But Kushner would have access to those levers and have potential knowledge of Trump’s fortune that Trump himself is not supposed to have. And Ivanka Trump sitting in on meetings with high-profile world leaders only compounds the possible conflicts of interest. So, yes, having Trump’s children so close to his presidency is already ethically and legally questionable. And tasking them with controlling his fortune while he’s in office and potentially giving one of their spouses an official role in his presidency makes all of this very dicey.
But Trump seems to be ignoring the doubters and pressing forward. We’ll see how far he can take it.
FIRST AMENDMENT UPDATE Politico “Frustrated and on edge at Trump Tower: More than a week after the election, the media is still locked out,”
(Reporters stake out the lobby of Trump Tower.)
KEEPING TRUMP HONEST WashPo “President-elect Donald Trump claimed credit on Thursday for keeping a Ford plant in Kentucky from moving to Mexico. But the company never planned to move the entire plant, only one of its production lines.” …
— @realDonaldTrump : “Just got a call from my friend Bill Ford, Chairman of Ford, who advised me that he will be keeping the Lincoln plant in Kentucky – no Mexico … I worked hard with Bill Ford to keep the Lincoln plant in Kentucky. I owed it to the great State of Kentucky for their confidence in me!”
FROM FORD “Ford has never announced plans to move to Mexico either its Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, which produces the Lincoln Navigator, or the Louisville Assembly Plant, which produces the Lincoln MKC and the Ford Escape. In a statement on Thursday night, following Trump’s tweet, the company said it had told Trump it would cancel a plan to shift production of a single model – the MKC – from Kentucky to Mexico. The company last year indicated it would be moving MKC production out of Louisville, though it did not announce where it was going. At the time, union leaders said the shift would not cost any jobs in Kentucky, because Escape production would replace lost MKC production.”
CALLING ALL DEMOCRATS Politico “Hillary Clinton’s attack dog David Brock is launching his own Koch-brothers-like donor network to finance attacks on President-elect Donald Trump and to rebuild the political left after Trump’s stunning victory over Clinton last week. Brock on Thursday night emailed more than 200 of the biggest donors on the left – including finance titans George Soros, Tom Steyer and Donald Sussman – inviting them to a retreat in Palm Beach over inauguration weekend to assess what Democrats did wrong in 2016, figure out how to correct it and raise cash for those initiatives.”
DIGITAL GOLD RUSH IMPACTED ELECTION (An Article from Nov 4th, Pre-Election) BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline. For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook. Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.
Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish[ed] aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US.
The young Macedonians who run these sites say they don’t care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: … Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters. As a result, this strange hub of pro-Trump sites in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [played] a significant role in propagating the kind of false and misleading content that was identified in a recent BuzzFeed News analysis of hyperpartisan Facebook pages. These sites open a window into the economic incentives behind producing misinformation specifically for the wealthiest advertising markets and specifically for Facebook, the world’s largest social network, as well as within online advertising networks such as Google AdSense. GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK BAN FAKE NEWS WEBSITES FROM THEIR ADVERTISING NETWORKS Technews “While it would have been nice to tackle this issue before the election, Google and Facebook are finally taking a tiny step in order to fight back against fake news. According to multiple statements, both companies have updated their policies to ban fake news sites from using Facebook’s and Google’s advertising networks. … We’re not talking about opinion articles — we’re talking about reports spreading blatantly inaccurate information. By removing a potential revenue stream, it makes the business of fake news a bit less lucrative. W
