THE DAILY DONALD: Democratic deals, mandatory evacuations, and "approximately $100,000 in ad spending"

FILED IN: PRESIDENT TRUMP, ENORMOUS LEVERAGE, "HE FUCKED US"

Less than 48 hours after his attorney general announced the rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by charging that "there is nothing compassionate about the failure to enforce immigration laws," the president took to Twitter to assure and inspirit those now in the crosshairs of Homeland Security: "For all of those (DACA) that are concerned about your status during the 6 month period, you have nothing to worry about - No action!"

Meanwhile, in other news...

"It’s unsettling," said Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. "I know it is for us as a conference; I can only imagine what it is for leadership."

 * The very well-sourced Axios, quoting an unnamed senior GOP official: "He fucked us."


The Hurricane Named Irma:
Hurricane Irma, which has already killed at least eight on St. Martin and left the island of Barbuda "barely habitable," is likely to make landfall in South Florida as a Category 4 storm sometime Sunday morning, and may reach as far north as South Carolina by Monday, prompting a new wave of mandatory evacuations in Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys.

To complicate matters even further, there are two additional hurricanes — Katia (which is about 195 miles northeast of Veracruz and boasting maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour), and Jose (about 815 miles east of the Lesser Antilles, with maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour) — looming on the horizon.

* The ever-blunt Gov. Rick Scott, with a message to his constituents: "Get out now."


The Russia Investigation:
Even as Donald Trump Jr. testifies privately to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his involvement in the now-infamous June 9th meeting between Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer promising damaging information about Hillary Clinton, the more pressing Russia-related news comes courtesy of Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos, who late yesterday evening published a blog post announcing that Facebook had "found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017" that "appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum," and which were "likely operated out of Russia."

According to multiple outlets, Facebook has already briefed members of both the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees about the suspected Russia advertising ("produc[ing] copies of advertisements as well as data about the buyer"), in addition to special counsel Robert Mueller.


Oh, and:

• "French police are questioning three people after a raid where explosive materials were found at a flat near Paris, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Thursday. Materials used to produce TATP, an explosive often used by suicide bombers, were found at the flat in Villejuif on the southern rim of the French capital on Wednesday after a plumber contacted police to report suspect activity there."

• "European Union defense ministers tested their ability to respond to a potential attack by computer hackers in their first cyber war game on Thursday, based on a simulated attack on one of the bloc’s military missions abroad. In the simulation, hackers sabotaged the EU’s naval mission in the Mediterranean and launched a campaign on social media to discredit the EU operations and provoke protests ... German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said the 'extremely exciting' war game showed the need for EU governments to be more aware of the impact of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure in the EU."

• "Germany said on Thursday that Russia was planning to send over 100,000 troops to war games on NATO’s eastern flank this month, disputing Moscow’s version that only 13,000 Russian and Belarussian servicemen would participate. The Sept. 14-20 exercises known as Zapad, or 'West' in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are stirring unease in NATO despite Moscow’s assurances troops would rehearse a purely defensive scenario."

• "China’s cabinet on Thursday passed new rules to regulate religion to bolster national security, fight extremism and restrict faith practiced outside organizations approved by the state ... The rules, which come into effect on Feb 2, 2018, also place new oversight on online discussion of religious matters, on religious gatherings, the financing of religious groups and the construction of religious buildings, among others."

• "Up to 300,000 Rohingya Muslims could flee violence in northwestern Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh, a U.N. agency official said on Wednesday, warning of a funding shortfall for emergency food supplies for the refugees. According to estimates issued by United Nations workers in Bangladesh’s border region of Cox’s Bazar, arrivals since the latest bloodshed started 12 days ago have already reached 146,000."

• "A senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan apologized on Wednesday for a 'highly offensive' leaflet which contained a passage from the Koran used in the Taliban militants’ banner superimposed on to the image of a dog. The Taliban said the leaflet showed American hatred of Islam, adding that it had launched a suicide attack near the entrance to the U.S. Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, in revenge."

• "U.S. prosecutors have charged a former Turkish economy minister and the ex-head of one of its state banks with conspiring to evade sanctions and to use the U.S. financial system to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions to benefit Iran. The indictment marks the first time an ex-government member with close ties to President Tayyip Erdogan has been charged in an investigation that has strained ties between Washington and Ankara. Ex-minister Zafer Caglayan was also charged with taking bribes in cash and jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars."

• "The U.S. House on Wednesday unanimously approved a sweeping proposal to speed the deployment of self-driving cars without human controls by putting federal regulators in the driver’s seat and barring states from blocking autonomous vehicles. The House measure, the first significant federal legislation aimed at speeding self-driving cars to market, would allow automakers to obtain exemptions to deploy up to 25,000 vehicles without meeting existing auto safety standards in the first year. The cap would rise over three years to 100,000 vehicles annually."

• "President Donald Trump is considering many candidates to head up the Federal Reserve and has soured on nominating his top economic adviser Gary Cohn to lead the U.S. central bank, according to sources close to the White House and an administration official. Two sources said Trump remained upset with Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs president, for criticizing his response to the violence sparked by a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month."

• "In an excerpt from an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, former Trump political strategist Steve Bannon attacked the Catholic Church for its stance on immigrant rights. 'The Catholic Church has been terrible about this,' Bannon said about its stance on immigration. 'To come to grips with the problems in the church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches… They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.'"

READ MORE ❯

• "Inside Trump's head-scratching deal with 'Chuck and Nancy'"  by Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan

• "Russian firm tied to pro-Kremlin propaganda advertised on Facebook during election"  by Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman

• "The First White President"  by Ta-Nehisi Coates

WHILE LISTENING TO ❯

• "Beautifully Unconventional" - Wolf Alice