Cabinet secretaries, agency administrators, senior officials and Mike Pence to receive raises of $10,000

Anthony Zinni, a retired four-star Marine Corps general, has resigned from President Donald Trump’s administration.
 
The general, who formerly served as the head of U.S. Central Command, was an envoy for the Trump administration to resolve an ongoing dispute between U.S. ally Qatar and a Saudi-led block of Arab states. However, as he confirmed to CBS News and Task & Purpose on Tuesday, Zinni believed he’d reached an impasse and decided to step down.
 
“I resigned because I do not feel I could successfully help resolve the Qatar dispute because of the unwillingness of the regional leaders to agree to a viable mediation effort that we offered to conduct or assist in implementing,” Zinni told CBS, according to senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan.
 
He made similar comments to Task & Purpose, explaining that he “just could not get the parties out there to engage in some sort of mediation process that we offered, and I felt that I couldn't do it much further."
 
For the past year and a half, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt have implemented a blockade against former close ally Qatar. The dispute arose in late May 2017 after the Qatar News Agency broadcast controversial comments attributed to the emirate’s ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Although Qatar has insisted that the agency was hacked, the emir was reported as saying his nation had “tensions” with the administration of President Donald Trump and acknowledged that Iran is an “Islamic power.” He also reportedly said, “There is no wisdom in harboring hostility toward Iran.”
 
Trump initially signaled his full support for the Saudi-led blockade, which saw the angered Arab states end all diplomatic and trade relations with wealthy Qatar. But Rex Tillerson, who was then serving as secretary of state, took a more moderate approach. While Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Egypt are all considered to be significant U.S. allies, Qatar hosts the largest American military base in the region.
 
Tensions have persisted and Saudi Arabia has even suggested it plans to dig a canal, projected to cost about $750 million, to cut off land access to Qatar. Zinni and the State Department have apparently been unable to successfully mediate to resolve the disagreement.
 
Zinni’s decision makes him the latest four-star general to depart from the Trump administration, following close behind the December announcement of General James Mattis, who served as secretary of defense. Mattis departed from the Trump administration due to his objections to the president’s abrupt announcement that the U.S. would withdraw from Syria. The administration has since backpedaled from that decision.
 

The rumor mill is humming along on Tuesday, as issues involving President Donald Trump‘s attorney Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. have bubbled to the surface.
 
Vanity Fair‘s Gabriel Sherman, a frequent quoter of anonymous sources close to “Trumpworld,” wrote Tuesday that Giuliani recently told a friend that he expects special counsel Robert Mueller‘s final report on the Russia investigation to be “horrific.” Giuliani apparently did not respond to a request for comment. The remark on the Mueller investigation was relayed by a person said to have been “briefed on [Giuliani’s] conversation.” That person also spoke of gossip and speculation that Trump “could do a deal and resign.”
 
It’s not the first time Sherman has reported on doom and gloom purportedly being intensely felt behind closed doors. Who could forget in June when it was said that Trump feared Michael Cohen as much as he did Robert Mueller? Again, unnamed friends claimed that Trump allies were just as worried about Cohen as they are that Mueller‘s investigation was “going to hit the fan pretty soon.”
 
“Donald is very worried,” a Republican described as close to Trump said at the time. A former White House official would add, “Trump should be super worried about Michael Cohen [flipping].” “If anyone can blow up Trump, it’s him,” that official said.
 
Cohen would end up turning on Trump in July to put his “family and country first.” The next month, he pleaded guilty in the Southern District of New York on the same day former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was found guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia. Cohen pleaded guilty to bank fraud, tax fraud and campaign finance violations. He said that Trump (Individual-1) “directed” him to commit campaign finance violations, putting Trump front and center of a hush payment scheme to keep porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal quiet about affairs before the 2016 election.
 
Then came another report from Sherman about the Trump reaction to the Cohen guilty plea, plus some attention-grabbing lines about Trump’s legal strategy related to these payments.
 
Separately, Donald Trump Jr.’s name popped up on Tuesday because, again, there were rumors put out there that he was telling friends he feared an imminent indictment.
 
Former MSNBC host Touré tweeted earlier Tuesday that Trump Jr. is “telling friends that he will be indicted. #BOOM.”
 
Don Trump Jr is telling friends that he will be indicted. #BOOM
 
— Touré (@Toure) January 8, 2019

L’épouvantail, parfois appelé « argument de l'homme de paille » par traduction littérale de l'expression anglaise « straw man », est un sophisme qui consiste à présenter la position de son adversaire de façon volontairement erronée. Créer un argument épouvantail consiste à formuler un argument facilement réfutable puis à l'attribuer à son opposant.

AP FACT CHECK: Democrats put the blame for the shutdown on Trump. But it takes two to tango. Trump's demand for $5.7 billion for his border wall is one reason for the budget impasse. The Democrats refusal to approve the money is another.

“No president should pound the table and demand he gets his way or else the government shuts down, hurting millions of Americans who are treated as leverage.”

This needs context.

An estimated 800,000 federal workers are furloughed or working without pay because of the shutdown. While millions of Americans are not being directly harmed, there is a multiplier effect when considering family members of those whose jobs are affected. This also spills into the broader economy, harming business owners whose customers must cut back, tourism and travel.

there is a multiplier effect when considering family members of those whose jobs are affected.

Let’s put $21 trillion in context. The entire national debt is $21.8 trillion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, total defense spending from 1998 to 2015 was nearly $9 trillion. The CBO estimates $7 trillion in defense spending from 2019 to 2028.
 
In other words, completely defunding the military for the next decade would yield only one-fifth of $32 trillion. That’s a much better way of illustrating the cost of Medicare-for-All.

“To clarify, this is to say that we only demand fiscal details [with health and education], rarely elsewhere,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a follow-up tweet.
 
“The point, I think, was more about how we care so little about the ‘how do you pay for it’ when we are talking about war and military spending,” her spokesman wrote in an email. “It’s only when we are talking about investing in the physical and economic well-being of our citizenry that we become concerned with the price tags.”

In a warning sign for the White House, a number of Senate Republicans offered tepid support for the hard-line stance taken by Trump, who is backed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While many Republicans said they'd continue to support McConnell and Trump for now, it was clear that support won't last indefinitely.
 
"There's a time when that may run out," Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson said of support for McConnell's refusal to back spending bills that lack Trump's support. "But right now that doesn't run out."

The comments come at an urgent time for Trump, who plans to attend a Senate GOP lunch Wednesday to shore up support for his strategy with the shutdown now in its third week. Already, Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Susan Collins of Maine -- who are both up for re-election in 2020 in purple states -- have indicated that they would support action by Congress to reopen the government even without a border wall deal. And more could soon revolt.