It’s not just Donald Trump who is willing to sell out his policies. He’s hired an entire team of kleptocrats, including a National Security Adviser who was on both sides of an attempted coup in a NATO ally country.

When a faction of the Turkish military attempted to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn celebrated the coup effort as something “worth clapping for.”  …

He warned that Erdogan was an Islamist and “very close to President [Barack] Obama,” who was leading his country toward disaster. However, that was before Flynn’s company was hired by an Erdogan ally. After that, Flynn began singing a slightly different tune.

Turkey is really our strongest ally against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as a source of stability in the region. It provides badly needed cooperation with U.S. military operations. But the Obama administration is keeping Erdoğan’s government at arm’s length — an unwise policy that threatens our long-standing alliance.

As unlikely as it seems, Flynn managed to weave both sides into his no-Muslim-is-above-suspicion narrative. At coup time, Erdogan was a scary ‘Islamist’ who was leading Turkey into the caliphate. But once under contract, the same authoritarian leader was actually fighting the good fight against a scary Muslim hiding right here in the United States—a Muslim who was, of course, tied to President Obama.

There's just a few giant problems with Donald Trump's massive $1 trillion infrastructure plan. 

1. Republicans have no idea how to pay for it, reports Politico:

Trump's advisers are so far floating the same kinds of financing schemes that Congress has batted around for years with little success, including proposals to lure private investors or reap a revenue windfall through an overhaul of the tax code. Key lawmakers say they’re in the dark on how Trump’s plan would work — with some conservatives simply hoping that his call for massive tax breaks will provide an economic jolt that makes the hard spending decisions easier.

2. The plan doesn't necessarily build, well, infrastructure (e.g. new roads, bridges, water systems or airports), so it doesn't guarantee any new jobs, writes Ron Klain, former Hillary Clinton adviser:

It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. [...] Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects. These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.

3. Republicans really have no idea what the "plan" even entails, reports Politico:

Even congressional Republicans who have long championed spending on transportation projects say they don’t yet know the details of Trump’s 10-year proposal, which the president-elect has vowed will “put millions of our people to work” while making U.S. infrastructure “second to none.”

"Look, we don't have the details," House Transportation Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) told POLITICO. "We're working very closely with his transition team and hopefully with the new department head to figure out how we're going to pay for it. It's got to be fiscally responsible."

A very strange thing is happening in national intelligence these days. Last week we had National Security Agency chief Admiral Michael Rogers publicly declaring that a "nation state" (read: Russia) had meddled in the presidential election "to attempt to achieve a specific effect" (read: get Donald Trump elected). Then, director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced that he was retiring and news broke that Rogers was being vetted for the DNI job. 

But suddenly, the knives came out for the NSA chief, as the Washington Post reported that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and DNI Clapper had urged the White House last month to remove Rogers from his job.

The Post article—on the front page of Sunday’s newspaper—noted that Rogers had met with Mr. Trump on Thursday without notifying his superiors, reportedly angering officials inside the Intelligence Community, as the Post report said that DNI Clapper was specifically the one who wanted Rogers booted.

But on Saturday, an official with close ties to Clapper explicitly denied that the DNI was trying to get rid of Rogers, further clouding the dispute.

Clapper and Carton have had long-running concerns about how Rogers was handling the agency—the request that he be fired was made well before the election. There have been two serious breaches of sensitive hacking tools at the NSA in the past 18 months. Beyond that, the Post reported, there "have been persistent complaints from NSA personnel that Rogers is aloof, frequently absent and does not listen to staff input." In fact, FBI agents investigating one of those breaches "were appalled at how lax security was at the [Tailored Access Operations hacking unit], officials said." So maybe that was behind Rogers' unprecedented discussion about Russia's interference in the election—putting pressure back on the FBI which may or may not be investigating that.

Meanwhile, here comes a Republican congressman to the rescue.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has done nothing to indicate that privatizing Medicare isn't at the very top of his agenda in the new Congress, with a new president. In fact, while everyone in the GOP is a little unsure of what they'll do about Obamacare, they know they want to gut Medicare and do it fast.

So it's worth remembering that Ryan's plan isn't just hugely unpopular and dangerous, it's premised on some pretty big lies.

"What people don’t realize is, because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke." — House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), interview with Fox News, Nov. 10

Our eyebrows went up when we saw this quote from Ryan. It has been a bipartisan fallacy to claim that the old-age health program Medicare is going "broke," which is incorrect  […]. But what was notable was he specifically blamed the Affordable Care Act for making Medicare go broke.

That’s doubly wrong. Let’s explain.

The explanations: no, it's not going broke. As of now, the trust fund can maintain everyone who needs it until 2028. After that, without intervention, it would start paying out less benefits. Not "no" benefits. Reduced. That's if there isn't an intervention of some kind to further cut costs, enroll younger, healthier people, increase payroll taxes, or any other of good policy options for keeping it going.

One of those policy options? Keeping Obamacare. Because Obamacare isn't making it go broke. Not at all. In fact, Obamacare has saved Medicare money, and extended the program's solvency by twelve years. It did increase payroll taxes on wages and self-employment income of wealthy Americans—above $250,000 per couple or $200,000 for a single taxpayer—by 0.9 percent. It also put in place a number of quality control measures that are working to keep costs down. Not to mention saving a lot of lives. No, what would make Medicare instantly face insolvency again is repealing Obamacare and all that stuff—like the increased payroll taxes—that are working to keep the program sound. 

Will Ryan really do it? There are lots of good pro and con arguments for his doing it on the fast track he seems to be promising, or putting his finger to the wind and realizing that it's not just that good of an idea, electorally. 

Last night, November 20, millions of people around the world watched independent media coverage of the over-militarized North Dakota police force endangering the lives of hundreds of people opposing the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In October, a police barricade was set-up with military vehicles chained to concrete barriers on a bridge on Highway 1806, north of the pipeline opposition camps, cutting off vital transportation access for local residents and businesses in and around the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Early last night the Water Protectors attempted to remove the blockade. Police said they would at some point open the road after their October 27 raid and demolition of the protectors’ camp set up adjacent to the blockade. The camp was on an easement granted to the pipeline builder, land that was taken from the various Sioux bands in violation of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.

The Water Protectors were met with hundreds of riot police, military vehicles with Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), water cannons, tear-gas canisters, high-pressure pepper spray and rubber bullets. The temperature was 26° Fahrenheit and rapidly dropping as hundreds of people were drenched with icy water. Police tear-gas canisters were tossed into the crowd, some were lobbed back. A large crowd on a bridge were unable to disperse and were forced to inhale too much gas. Many people started vomiting and losing bowel and bladder control from the coughing. 

The water cannons were in use for more than five hours along with intermittent fire of rubber bullets, gas canisters and pepper spray.

UPDATE FROM HEAD MEDIC OF THE OCETI SAKOWIN CAMP 11:11PM:
167 Water Protectors have been injured. 3 of those people are elders.
7 people have been hospitalized for severe head injuries. The police are targeted [sic] the heads and legs of Water Protectors.

There are no fatalities. Standing Rock EMT is still on site.

The supposed alt-right's attempt at normalizing themselves is hitting a few snags, as seen at this weekend's Washington D.C. meeting.

[Leading alt-right ideologue Richard Spencer] railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German. America, he said, belonged to white people, whom he called the “children of the sun,” a race of conquerors and creators who had been marginalized but now, in the era of President-elect Donald J. Trump, were “awakening to their own identity.”

As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. When Mr. Spencer, or perhaps another person standing near him at the front of the room — it was not clear who — shouted, “Heil the people! Heil victory,” the room shouted it back.

Which is a hell of a thing, considering that Trump’s apologists have been beside themselves trying to explain to us that the "alt-right" is, well, not that, and that Steve Bannon, the man who turned Breitbart into a self-declared "alt-right" news outlet is not, despite all evidence to the contrary, one of the nation's chief mainstreamers of anti-Semitic and white supremacist ideologies.

So the guy who coined the term "alt-right" to describe his movement is an actual Nazi-quoting, anti-Semitic white supremacist leading his followers into a good old fashioned Hitler salute. Are there any more questions from the pundit floor, or do we have this "what is the alt-right" business pretty well buttoned down now? Anyone? Anyone at all?

Yeah. So let's maybe have one last round of asking Republicans like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell if this is indeed a movement that they are willing to break bread with. And let’s demand to know if the leader of "the alt-right's most prominent platform, Breitbart News" is a man they will obligingly support as the senior adviser and strategist for their new Republican administration.

As our nation's pundits continue to debate whether new President-elect Donald Trump is himself a racist or merely has had an uncanny lifelong ability to surround himself with racists, let's look back at the man he believes ought to be in charge of enforcing the nation's laws. Here's Sen. Jeff Sessions last year, taking a contrarian opinion as the great majority of his fellow lawmakers finally decided, in the wake of the Charleston murders, that it was time to retire that damn confederate flag.

Sessions said he was no fan of any attempt to “erase history” or “who we are,” recalling his own family’s role in the Civil War. “This is a huge part of who we are and the left is continually seeking, in a host of different ways, it seems to me, I don’t want to be too paranoid about this, but they seek to delegitimize the fabulous accomplishments of our country,” the senator added.

Sessions left unspoken what the “fabulous accomplishments” represented by the confederate flag might have been.

Of course we are not erasing the confederate flag from the history museums (though you may not find it in Civil War museums because it ain't the real "confederate flag"). We are erasing it from atop our state legislatures, because as the banner of the anti-civil rights movement it has long represented not "fabulous accomplishments," but unfettered racism.

Jeff Sessions knows this. And the reason he is in the Senate today and not a federal judge is because his fellow Republican senators found Session's dabbling in racism, in the old enlightened days of the Reagan administration, too odious to ignore.

Last week, Trump’s new Washington hotel played host to a collection of foreign diplomats.

Back when many expected Trump to lose the election, speculation was rife that business would suffer at the hotels, condos and golf courses that bear his name. Now, those venues offer the prospect of something else: a chance to curry favor or access with the next president.

This wasn’t a spontaneous gathering. This was a meeting arranged by Trump’s family, expressly so that visiting diplomats could ponder ways in which they could make ties to the new administration. It was just one of many methods by which Trump is already moving to monetize the presidency.

Trump isn’t placing his business in a blind trust. More than that, he’s continuing to meet with his business associates even as he’s planning his transition to power. Trump is even planning new business deals to take place during his term in office.

Some companies reflect long-established deals while others were launched as recently as Trump’s campaign, including eight that appear tied to a potential hotel project in Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich Arab kingdom that Trump has said he “would want to protect.”

It’s corruption, without doubt. It places the diplomatic and security interest of the nation at risk. But is it illegal?

Foes of partisan gerrymandering scored a monumental victory Monday when a three-judge federal panel struck down the Republican-drawn map of the Wisconsin state Assembly as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. State Senate districts could also be affected since they consist of three nested Assembly districts. Wisconsin is one of the most heavily gerrymandered states in the country and Democrats won the statewide popular vote in 2012, but this map helped give Republicans a majority of seats. But critically, this new ruling could reverberate well beyond Wisconsin because the case now sets the stage for a future Supreme Court decision that could set major limits on partisan gerrymandering nationwide.

An earlier Supreme Court ruling called Vieth v. Jubelirer previously held that partisan gerrymandering could be unconstitutional. But in that case, Justice Anthony Kennedy, as the deciding vote, refused to strike down the particular map in question for lack of a manageable standard to determine when impermissible partisan gerrymandering takes place. The plaintiffs in Wisconsin proposed one such standard called the “efficiency gap” that would statistically look at how many votes get “wasted” in each election. If one party routinely wins landslide victories in a few seats while the other party wins much more modest yet secure margins in the vast majority, it could signify a gerrymander that has gone so far as to infringe upon the rights of voters to free speech and equal protection.

Republicans will certainly appeal this ruling directly to the Supreme Court. With Trump’s upcoming nominee almost certain to side with the other three arch-conservatives on the court, Kennedy will once again act as the swing vote. Whether the plaintiffs will be able to convince him that their efficiency gap test satisfies his precedent in Vieth is the key unknown. If they succeed, we could be entering a new era where courts around the country start imposing new restrictions on partisan gerrymandering. When Republicans have gerrymandered 55 percent of congressional districts and most state legislatures nationwide, that could have far-reaching consequences, indeed.

Bathroom Gov. Pat McCrory's bid to consolidate the election complaints review process with the North Carolina State Board of Elections was rejected Sunday, at least for now. The board planned to set guidelines Tuesday for the process by which county elections boards should review McCrory's complaints, writes Colin Campbell:

The McCrory campaign has been involved in filing dozens of elections protests regarding dead voters, felon voters, people voting twice and absentee ballot concerns – some of which were rejected by Republican-led county election boards on Friday. Campaign manager Russell Peck asked the state board to rule on all complaints.

County elections boards must rule on the complaints first before their decision can be appealed to the State Board of Elections. In a rare “emergency” meeting on Sunday, the state board didn’t rule out the possibility of reviewing election complaints – but it left the initial responsibility with county boards.

The McCrory campaign filed 50 new election complaints late last week that it said would "void anywhere between 100 to 200 ballots cast by suspected felons, dead people and double voters." Campaign officials also promised more complaints to come. McCrory officially trailed Democrat Roy Cooper by 6,600 votes as of Friday, though the Cooper campaign claimed a 7,900 lead Saturday. The McCrory camp is also falling short on the complaints it has promised to produce.

Oh, national "news" media. What the hell are you even for?

On November 19, The New York Times reported that Trump “still maintains the routine that sustained him during the campaign,” which includes “often seek[ing] out” advice from [MSNBC host Joe Scarborough]. CNN media reporter Brian Stelter referenced the Times report on the November 20 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, stating that Scarborough has been giving Trump advice.” Scarborough failed to address the allegations during the November 21 edition of Morning Joe.

Scarborough has repeatedly attacked those who claimed he was supporting Trump on-air. In November, Scarborough lashed out at the “really disgusting” people who suggested he favored Trump, adding that he doesn’t want viewers to believe “that anybody [on Morning Joe] is rooting for Donald Trump because we’re not.”

Outstanding. Just outstanding. So Joe Scarborough has been giving Trump regular advice, and the MSNBC appendage has nothing to say about this beyond his past attacks on people who would suggest such things.

Why are we even surprised? From CNN's installation of Corey Lewandowski as resident Trump defender to MSNBC tossing their ethical standards into a burning garbage bin to allow one of their hosts to act as undisclosed adviser to Trump, the networks are doing their level best to make their Trump coverage as crooked as Trump's campaign.

But all right, now we presumably have to wait for MSNBC to "address" this patently asinine breach of what used-to-be-ethics. Let's watch: this ought to be grand.