Attention to the Unseen

Gabriel Sherman writes: With Senate Republicans on track to acquit Donald Trump on Wednesday, Washington is bracing for what an unshackled Trump does next. Republicans briefed on Trump’s thinking believe that the president is out for revenge against his adversaries. “It’s payback time,” a prominent Republican told me last week. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day,” another source said. Names that came up in my conversations with Republicans included Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitt Romney,…

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Al Jazeera reports: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has said it rejects US President Donald Trump ‘s recently unveiled Middle East plan. The 57-member body, which held a summit on Monday to discuss the plan in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, said in a statement that it “calls on all member states not to engage with this plan or to cooperate with the US administration in implementing it in any form”. Requested by the Palestinian leadership, the meeting of the body…

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HuffPost reports: A leading Brexiteer has suggested it could take 50 years to judge whether Brexit has been an economic success amid fears quitting the European Union will lead to a downturn. The influential Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group of backbench Tories, was pressed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News about whether he would quit if the “economy does take a hit next year” when Brexit happens. Rees-Mogg insisted the full impact will not…

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The Times of Israel reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was cutting all ties, including security coordination, with both Israel and the US on Saturday, in a lengthy speech delivered at an Arab League meeting in Egypt’s capital denouncing the new White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We’ve informed the Israeli side…that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties,” Abbas declared. The PA leader said he’d stated…

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In an editorial, The Guardian says: Brexit is not over. The separation has been agreed. But not the terms. We are now in transition for a further 11 months to an unknown destination. In practice, everyday life today will be the same as before. The country will not plunge into the abyss, a fact that will be shamelessly misrepresented over the coming weeks by Brexit supporters. For the rest of this year, EU rules and obligations still apply. But it…

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A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen write: The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially…

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The Washington Post reports: Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine. In a midnight court filing, the Department of Justice explained why it shouldn’t have to unredact copies of more than 100 emails written by officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department about the hold…

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The Washington Post reports: A trove of documents released on Friday evening provide the clearest glimpse yet into how President Trump’s inaccurate statements, altered forecast map and tweets regarding Hurricane Dorian’s forecast path rattled top officials along with rank and file scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in September. The documents, released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from The Washington Post and other media outlets, show that the No. 2 official at the agency,…

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Peter Hamby writes: The Bernie bed-wetting has reached full-blown rubber sheet mode. With Bernie Sanders hanging on to a slim polling lead in Iowa and an even bigger one in New Hampshire, panicked Democrats are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could surf a wave of unstoppable momentum all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Nominating Sanders to run against Donald Trump would be an “Act of Insanity,” according to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Dems Tormented…

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BuzzFeed reports: After days of arguments and questioning in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, many Republican senators have come to the same conclusion: The president did it, and they don’t care. House Democrats voted to impeach Trump on claims he abused his power by withholding military aid to Ukraine in exchange for an announcement the country would investigate political rival, Joe Biden. Democrats also argued the president stonewalled the House’s investigation leading to the second article of impeachment, obstruction of…

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The New York Times reports: More than two months before he asked Ukraine’s president to investigate his political opponents, President Trump directed John R. Bolton, then his national security adviser, to help with his pressure campaign to extract damaging information on Democrats from Ukrainian officials, according to an unpublished manuscript by Mr. Bolton. Mr. Trump gave the instruction, Mr. Bolton wrote, during an Oval Office conversation in early May that included the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney,…

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