JustOneMinute

Trump backing away from a mini-shutdown over the wall.

This is a partisan stem-winder but still - the author seems able to document his point that Mueller may have railroaded Gen. Flynn by concealing frelevant and potentially exculpatory evidence.

Does Mueller's behavior sound like the sort of thing that happens all the time but shouldn't? Or has he been way out of bounds here?

A third grader loses a class election to a fourth grader. Hillary sees sexism, not a triumph of experience over hope.

Diligent and creative posturing by bureaucrats whose careers are tied to climate change negotiations deliver more "progress" on climate change. Whew!

DO LET ME ADD: Good athleticism by Michal Kurtyka. the Polish deputy minister who jump-started these talks. OK, jump-ended them. Whatev.

Away we go.

THE MIGHT HAVE FALLEN: The mighty have fallen, or at least been brought to their knees - the NFL is scuffling to book a half-time act for the Super Bowl.

Once again we have faced fear and fled.

I said many months back that (assuming Mueller comes up empty on Russian collusion, as seems likely) the Fed was the last institution standing between Trump and a glide path to re-election based on a strong economy.

Buckle up! That glide path looks a lot less assured right now. Plan B - a quick mini-recession or growth pause starting, like, yesterday and ending quickly - is problematic because the perception of recovery generally lags the reality, as Bush 41 found out in 1992. Of course, back then the media was happy to play along with Bill Clinton, who claimed the economy was in the worst shape since the Depression. And they will play along with the Democrats this time around, for obvious and timeless reasons.

Really?

Tabloid Publisher’s Deal in Hush-Money Inquiry Adds to Trump’s Danger

Yeah, yeah, and Al Capone was busted for tax evasion. More to the point, Richard Nixon was busted for (among other things) campaign finance irregularities. But for heaven's sake - the Watergate investigation started with irrefutable evidence of a break-in at DNC headquarters, which we all understand to be a crime. Not to mention that Nixon wondering whether the CIA could head off the FBI investigation looked a lot like obstruction and an abuse of Presidential power.

But Trump and Cohen? For better or worse, paying off former Playmates and playmates is not a crime. As to whether the actual mechanism violated campaign finance rules, well, first of all, that is why Trump hired lawyers. Lacking evidence that Cohen advised Trump this was illegal and Trump ordered him to go full speed ahead anyway, where is the criminal intent? And a perceived lack of criminal intent is why Hillary is not serving time for her server shenanigans.

This is a crime so subtle that charging it looks like yet another interminable NFL booth review of a sideline catch, where replay officials host a seance to determine the location of various body parts relative to ground and sideline and then enlist diviners to judge whether the receiver was juggling the ball, had firm possession, engaged in a football move, or whatever.

Even top Democrats admit that this campaign finance thing is iffy:

If the campaign finance case as laid out by prosecutors is true, [incoming House Judiciary Chair] Mr. Nadler said, Mr. Trump would be likely to meet the criteria for an impeachable offense, and he said he would instruct his committee to investigate when he takes over in January.

But he added that did not necessarily mean that the committee should vote to impeach Mr. Trump. “Is it serious enough to justify impeachment?” he asked. “That is another question.”

Democrats can use it as a tack-on to their central charge of "Orange Hair Bad".

Three years for Cohen. Is there a pardon in his future?

Trump wants $5 billion for a border wall and a symbolic win. Pelosi and Schumer will give him a fence, or a partial government shutdown. Resist!

I love Schumer's soundbite: "The public expects us to be even smaller and less reasonable than Trump and we won't disappoint them."

I may have misheard that. Probably not.

Brit PM Theresa May bails out on a Parliamentary vote on her Brexit deal. What next? Who knows!

DEAD POOL UPDATE: it seems like only a week ago we were contemplating the G-20 meeting in Paris, but really it was a week and a half. I can't handicap all twenty of these world leaders, but among Merkel, Macron, May and Trump, Merkel was already headed out the door (as of 2021) at the meeting. But she clings to power today, as do the other three leaders in the Dead Pool.

So who will be the first among this group (or the larger G-20) to be shown the door? Theresa May virtually any day? Likely! Macron next spring or sooner? Not so fast - as President of France (NOT Prime Minister) he was elected to serve a five year term in 2017. The Assembly would normally serve until then as well. So barring a complete collapse of the governing structure, Macron should be able to stay until 2022, even if events force him to replace his current PM leading a new coalition.

Trump may be impeached by House Democrats for having a bad comb-over but nothing revealed so far suggests there will be 67 votes in the Senate for removal. OTOH, unless re-elected Jan 20, 2021 is his end date.

So who lasts the longest? It seems weird that Macron, who may be the least popular of the four and with a country beset by riots, is most likely to be in office in 2022. PredictIt bettors say May is the next European leader to go (69% probability) followed by Macron (20%).

OK, my calls: May is the next to go, Trump will outlast the other three.

Andrew McCarthy thinks the prosecutors of the SDNY are coming for Donald Trump.

The major takeaway from the 40-page sentencing memorandum filed by federal prosecutors Friday for Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, is this: The president is very likely to be indicted on a charge of violating federal campaign finance laws.

It has been obvious for some time that President Trump is the principal subject of the investigation still being conducted by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

McCarthy explains that although Trump could have contributed the amounts in question fro his own account there would still be disclosure rules that were not followed.

This will be a major talking point for Trump supporters:

Moreover, campaign finance infractions are often settled by payment of an administrative fine, not turned into felony prosecutions. To be sure, federal prosecutors in New York City have charged them as felonies before – most notably in 2014 against Dinesh D’Souza, whom Trump later pardoned.

In marked contrast, though, when this was discovered that Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was guilty of violations involving nearly $2 million – an amount that dwarfs the $280,000 in Cohen’s case – the Obama Justice Department decided not to prosecute. Instead, the matter was quietly disposed of by a $375,000 fine by the Federal Election Commission.

My guess as to the Democratic spin is that the Obama-era violations were an administrative breakdown, not willful misreporting directed by The One. it'll be the old "the buck stops down there somewhere" defense.

As a bit of an aside, also in the news is the impact on our trade talks with China of the arrest of a prominent member of the Chinese ruling elite. I have no doubt that Chinese leaders believe their own system engages in politically motivated prosecutions, and they may suspect the US system does as well. Plenty of Americans also believe that, which is a bit awkward.

Even more of an aside is this:

Hands up if you're an office pool savant who collected on a bet that media darling Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez would be getting ethics lessons from Don Trump Jr.

We'll find out with the November jobs report in 10 minutes. Not that Wall Street has lacked for excitement this week.

Take these three stories together and the next few decades of climate change science and policy become obvious.

A. The big cities most threatened by rising sea levels are in Asia, with emphasis on China and India. The US will be spending $6 billioin a year defending New Orleans, New York and Miami. China will be spending $18 billion defending Guangzhou, Tianjin and Shenzhen. India will be spending $10 billion on Mumbai and Kolkata.

B. The fastest growth in carbon emissions in 2018 is coming from India (+6%) and China +(+5%). The US is up 2% and the EU is probably down. The biggest emitters are China (27% of global emissions), the US (15%), the EU (10%) and India (7%). Unsympathetic math says that IF China and India each grow by 5% per year for five more years their new emissions will roughly equal all of the current EU emissions. If the EU huffs and puffs and goes to zero emissions in the next five years (Bon chance, Macron!)  then net global emissions will still be higher. Not encouraging!

C. Geoengineering is likely to take to the skies over the US next year, despite grave concerns from Greens worried that this will be a distraction from the real fight to push us all back into caves.

The blindingly obvious upshot - China is the biggest emitter by far and has the most to lose from climate change. Also, as Tom Friedman has noted with approval, pesky Greens don't hold much sway there. Expect China, probably with the direct or tacit cooperation of India, to embark on some major geoengineering projects whether the rest of the world is on board or not. If a Pacific volcano can spread dust around the world, surely a motivated Chinese effort can do the same.

The ensuing diplo-scuffles will be fraught. Does the rest of the world impose trade sanctions on China? Does China hold the world hostage, arguing that developed nations owe the third world billions in compensation for our decades of polluting with carbon? And what, pray tell, happens of the apparent short-term consequences are benign to positive - does the rest of the world remain freaked out, or shrug and move on to the next problem?

I am confident that if Barbra Streisand is still alive, this Chinese venture will kill her. As to other consequences, well, I expect to live long enough to find out.