12.13 Margaret Atwood: The systematic effort to drive a rift between access to knowledge and the citizens of a country has a familiar ring to this dystopian novelist. When I wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, I made sure that nothing went into it that had not come from somewhere in history. I used journalists, historians, and other nonfiction writers as my sources. Because when you publish such a novel, you hope your work will remind people that “It can’t happen here” has simply never been true.
12.13 The Senate votes 56-to-41 to cut off U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia’s often brutal conduct in the Yemen civil war. It’s the first time either chamber of Congress has asserted itself against the executive branch by using the War Powers Act. A few minutes later, the Senate voted unanimously to approve a separate, nonbinding resolution that blames Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Adnan Khashoggi.
12.12 Richard Painter, the former chief ethics attorney for President George W. Bush, on MSNBC: “It’s quite clear his goose is cooked here,”
12.12 Michaelangelo Signorile in HUffington Post: “The GOP is fast becoming the party of “fragile masculinity” — a party of men who researchers, writing in The Washington Post about a recent study they conducted on voting patterns, describe as “insecure” about their masculinity for a variety of reasons and who “feel pressure to look and behave in stereotypically masculine ways.” Such men look to figures like Trump — “tough politicians” who can “reassure” them of “their own manliness.” The research compared Google search data of terms like “erectile dysfunction” and “hair loss” with support for Trump in different areas of the U.S. in 2016. [“We began by selecting a set of search topics that we believed might be especially common among men concerned about living up to the ideals of manhood: “erectile dysfunction,” “hair loss,” “how to get girls,” “penis enlargement,” “penis size,” “steroids,” “testosterone” and “Viagra.”] Those correlations weren’t there for previous presidential elections, but they were in evidence again for the 2018 midterms: In the more than 390 House elections pitting a Republican candidate against a Democratic candidate, support for the Republican candidate was higher in districts that, based on Google search data, had higher levels of fragile masculinity. However, there was no significant relationship between fragile masculinity and voting in the 2014 or 2016 congressional elections. This suggests that fragile masculinity has now become a stronger predictor of voting behavior. In essence, Trump has helped shape fragile masculinity as a defining aspect of Republican politics. And its influence is why politicians and pundits like Watters and Graham — who themselves speak to a constituency of men who identify with that sense of fragile masculinity — saw the Oval Office meeting in a different way than most other people did.”
12.12 Theresa May survives a no confidence vote in Commons by 3 votes. Between protests erupting throughout France, a partial government shutdown looming in the United States, and Britain’s ongoing Brexit battles, Western democracies hurtled toward an intercontinental train wreck. “Instability appears to be the order of the day, whether in the United States or in Europe,” The Post‘s Dan Balz wrote earlier this week. “Traditional politics, of the kind practiced in Western democracies for decades after World War II, is on shaky ground nearly everywhere, struggling to find the point of equilibrium that can satisfy populations fractured by economic, cultural and social changes.”
12.12 Wall Street Journal: “Americans, More Than Ever, Are Aging Alone … Loneliness undermines health and is linked to early mortality — and baby boomers are especially feeling the effects. Baby boomers are aging alone more than any generation in U.S. history, and the resulting loneliness is a looming public health threat. About one in 11 Americans age 50 and older lacks a spouse, partner or living child, census figures and other research show. That amounts to about eight million people in the U.S. without close kin, the main source of companionship in old age, and their share of the population is projected to grow. Policy makers are concerned this will strain the federal budget and undermine baby boomers’ health. Researchers have found that loneliness takes a physical toll, and is as closely linked to early mortality as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day or consuming more than six alcoholic drinks a day. Loneliness is even worse for longevity than being obese or physically inactive.”
12.12 Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe, on the way the administration planned to deal with Saudi Arabia in the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi‘s murder: ‘I understand that Donald Trump doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. But why doesn’t Mike Pompeo care right now? Are the pathetic deflections that we just heard when he appeared on [Fox] is that a patriot speaking? Or a wannabe dictator’s butt boy?’
12.12 Publisher of the National Enquirer admits to making hush-money payment on Trump‘s behalf. The tabloid, which trumpeted his candidacy and is controlled by Trump’s longtime friend David Pecker, had flipped on the president
12.12 Michael Cohen is sentenced to three years in prison. The president’s lawyer expressed regret for his “blind loyalty” to Trump, which she said led him “to choose a path of darkness over light.” Cohen: “Time and time again, I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds.”
12.12 Jennifer Rubin in the Post: Pelosi “ferociously held her ground in an Oval Office showdown, daring him to make good on his boast that he had the votes in the House for his wall. Pelosi declared that “there are no votes in the House, a majority of votes, for a wall — no matter where you start.” Trump insisted that he’d have the votes if he wanted them. ” Well, then go do it. Go do it,” she said confidently. Wham! When Trump insisted that the Democrats’ package was not “good border security,” she replied: “It’s actually what the border security asked for.”
12.11 Brian Cashman: “If something doesn’t make sense today, it doesn’t mean it won’t make sense tomorrow,” Cashman said. “All I can keep telling you is, you know where my current focuses are, but at the same time we’re a fully operational Death Star.”
12.11 Pelosi: “‘It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him. This wall thing.’
12.11 Trump: “I will be the one to shut it down. I will take the mantle of shutting it down… I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck.”
12.11 WashPo: Trump thought he’d get the better of Democratic leaders Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Charles E. Schumer when he blindsided them in their Oval Office meeting by opening it up to the press, live cameras and all. Trump blustered and tried to command the room by asserting over and over he wasn’t relenting on money for his border wall. But in under 20 minutes, the two political veterans had Trump the dealmaker willingly accepting responsibility for a government shutdown. Not long into the meeting, Pelosi and Schumer figured out that with just a little goading they could get Trump to do the one thing Republicans would have begged him not to: take the fall for shutting down the government.
12.11 Trump to Reuters: “I’m not concerned [about impeachment], no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened.”
12.11 Axios: In the early 1960s, the bottom 90% of American households by income had the same wealth as the top 1% — 33% of the total. Today the bottom 90% has dropped to only 20% of the wealth, while the top 1% has raised its share to 40%, according to a paper by Edward Wolff, an economics professor at New York University.
12.10 Richard Cohen in the Post: Okay, America, are we great again yet? Are we respected throughout the world? Are the Chinese quaking in their boots as we hike tariffs? Has Saudi Arabia come clean about murdering a Post columnist after covering up the atrocity so clumsily that you could almost see blood dripping from the hands of the crown prince? If America is great again, how come we grovel before a nation that needs us more than we need it? Tweet me an answer, Mr. President. But keep it short. Has America reversed global warming by simply denying it? Are factory jobs up? How about iron and steel? The same. And coal mining — “beautiful, clean coal” in the hallucinatory words of the president? Not what it once was. Is NATO stronger? Does 
America enjoy moral leadership? Would our allies rush to our aid, as they did after Sept. 11, 2001? President George W. Bush’s grand “coalition of the willing” might be impossible to re-assemble. President Trump has managed to unite Western Europe in one respect. All its leaders loathe him.
12.10 H’Hen Nie of Vietnam during the 2018 Miss Universe national costume presentation in Thailand.
12.10 Albany
12.9 Marshall Crenshaw at The Turning Point with Tim and Cathy
12.9 Giants beat Washington 40-16. Saquon Barkley has two runs of more than 50 yards
12.8 Jennifer Rubin on MSNBC: “I would predict here on MSNBC that when Trump leaves office he will resign the presidency 10 minutes before Mike Pence leaves office, allowing Pence to pardon him if there is not a Republican president to follow him,”
