;)
The Commentariat -- January 18, 2018
Afternoon/Evening Update:
Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House approved a short-term spending bill Thursday to avoid a government shutdown, sending the measure to the Senate where Democrats said they have enough votes to block its passage. House Republican leaders prevailed in lobbying the conservative House Freedom Caucus and defense hawks who demanded more money for the military in exchange for their votes. The bill passed 230-197. But a government shutdown on the anniversary of President Trump's inauguration appeared likely as Democrats signaled they had rallied enough opposition to stop the measure from passing in the upper chamber."
... Mike Lillis & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "The House Freedom Caucus has endorsed a deal with GOP leadership to support a short-term government funding bill, putting the House on track to pass the stopgap on Thursday night and send it to the Senate. The caucus endorsed the deal on Thursday night, after warning they had the votes to defeat it earlier in the day." ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Senate Democrats say they have secured the votes to block a House plan to fund the government through mid-February. A Democratic aide confirmed that the caucus will be able to block Republicans from getting the 60 votes needed to overcome an initial procedural hurdle."
Chris Mooney of the Washington Post: "2017 was among the hottest years ever recorded, government scientists reported Thursday.... The 2017 results make the past four years the hottest period in their 138-year archive.... The renewed evidence of climate change, driven by human emissions of greenhouse gases, comes as the Trump administration moves to open new areas for oil drilling and rolls back regulations that sought to reduce global warming, most prominently by moving to repeal the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan. The administration said it would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement last year." Mrs. McC: Yes, but science at best is a series of evolving theories, but in fact is a total hoax, promulgated by a bunch of pointy-headed hucksters hustling for cushy research grants.
The Dimwit at 1600 Pa. Ave, Ctd. Five Minutes Ago. Scott Wong & Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "President Trump undermined his own party's plan to avert a looming government shutdown on Thursday after tweeting that a key Democratic bargaining chip shouldn't be attached to the funding package. The 17-word tweet threw Capitol Hill into a state of confusion ahead of what is already expected to be a tight vote in the House Thursday night. Republicans on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue were trying to decipher what exactly the president meant by declaring a popular children's health-care program should be part of a 'long term solution' as opposed to a '30 Day, or short term, extension.'" ...
... Four Minutes Ago. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "The White House on Thursday reiterated that President Trump supports stopgap spending legislation backed by House GOP leaders, an effort to clear up confusion caused by Trump's early-morning tweet about the effort to prevent a government shutdown." ...
... Sarah Kliff & Tara Golshan of Vox: "... some [Congressional Republicans] have already written ... off [Trump's tweet] as inconsequential, likely the result of a news segment the president may have seen." Mrs. McC Translation: They know he's an ignorant moron, but he's their ignorant moron. ...
... Brian Beutler of Crooked: "... if Democrats and Republicans team up to avoid [a government shutdown with a DACA bill], it is nearly certain that Republicans will quietly return to their longstanding but unstated opposition to protecting Dreamers, the Trump administration will begin deporting them, and Democrats will have no good answers for those caught up in the sweeps."
Surprise! Linley Sanders of Newsweek: "Almost one year after President Donald Trump took the oath of office, millions of dollars from his leftover inauguration funds have still not been donated to the charities they were promised to. Trump's inauguration committee raised a record-breaking $107 million as his administration prepared to assume the White House last year, but very little has been disclosed about where the remaining money was allocated. Nearing the one-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration, a government watchdog group is questioning why the funds disappeared." --safari
"This One Is Big." Josh Marshall: "Going back more than a year there have been a number of as yet uncorroborated claims that Russia funneled a vast sum of money into the NRA to support get out the vote activities to elect Donald Trump.... It's pretty clear that the NRA played a very important part in securing Trump's razor-thin victory.... There's little question that this effort (Russia courting the NRA and vice versa) is at some level an influence operation, an effort to cozy up to and develop relationships with a major right-wing organization in the US. Whether it goes beyond that into clearly illegal efforts on behalf of Russians or Americans is as yet a fact not in evidence." See also McClatchy's report, linked below & Jonathan Chait's commentary. Mrs. McC: As Marshall warns, these are claims at this point. But it matters that Mueller's team is taking these claims seriously.
Michael Grunwald of Politico: "Every quarter, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formally requests its operating funds from the Federal Reserve. Last quarter, former director Richard Cordray asked for $217.1 million. Cordray, an appointee of President Barack Obama, needed just $86.6 million the quarter before that. And yesterday..., Donald Trump's acting CFPB director, Mick Mulvaney, sent his first request to the Fed. He requested zero."
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"The video [is] by the Gondwana Collection Namibia - which runs several game reserves in the southern African nation...."
John Bresnahan, et al., of Politico: "House Republicans are short of the votes they need to avoid a government shutdown, but Speaker Paul Ryan and GOP leaders remain confident they will pass a stopgap funding measure when it comes to the floor on Thursday.... President Donald Trump is personally leaning on GOP lawmakers to fall into line, especially hard-line conservatives who are opposed to virtually anything Ryan and his leadership team propose." ...
... Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "Bitter divisions in both parties threatened Wednesday to derail Congress's effort to keep the federal government fully operating past the end of the week. The shutdown threat emerged on two fronts: Republican defense hawks in the House said a short-term spending plan the party introduced late Tuesday did not devote enough money to the military. Meanwhile, Democrats, whose support would be critical for passage in the Senate, began lining up in opposition amid pressure from immigration activists to use the budget talks as leverage to legalize ... 'dreamers.' By Wednesday evening, the short-term bill was on the cusp of failure." ...
... Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Republicans on Wednesday expressed cautious optimism about averting a government shutdown at midnight Friday, with rank-and-file members grudgingly accepting a short-term spending bill.... If Republican leaders can quell dissent among deficit and defense hawks and pass the measure with only GOP votes, House Democrats will lose the leverage they planned to exercise on behalf of dreamers during the current round of negotiations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ryan Grim of The Intercept: "The House spending bill released Wednesday would allow President Trump, or people under him, to secretly shift money to fund intelligence programs, a break with 70 years of governing tradition.... Since 1947, section 504 of the National Security Act has mandated that the administration inform Congress if it intends to shift money from one intelligence project to another, if the new project has not been authorized by Congress. That notification can be -- and almost always is -- done in secret, but it is at least a minimal check on executive power. The spending bill currently under consideration, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, breaks with that tradition." --safari...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "While talking about languishing discussions to attach a DACA compromise and border security to the government-funding bill that is due Friday, [Mitch] McConnell suggested that the White House had failed to even make its demands known. 'I'm looking for something that President Trump supports, and he has not yet indicated what measure he is willing to sign,' McConnell said. 'As soon as we figure out what he is for, then I would be convinced that we were not just spinning our wheels.'... Lawmakers proceeded with the bill anyway, but Senate GOP leaders indicated Wednesday they won't devote floor time to something Trump won't sign. In other words, it seems we're headed for another short-term extension that avoids a government shutdown but doesn't address the soon-to-expire Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals protections...." ...
... Ayesha Rascoe & Roberta Rampton of Reuters: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday aligned himself solidly with conservative Republicans on immigration, criticizing a proposed bipartisan deal as 'horrible' on U.S. border security and 'very, very weak' on reforms for the legal immigration system." ...
... The Wayback (to January 9, that is) Machine. I'll sign whatever immigration bill [Congress sends] me.... You guys are going to have to come up with a solution [for Dreamers] and I'm going to sign that solution.... I think my positions are going to be what the people in this room come up with. If they come to me with things I'm not in love with, I'm going to do it. Because I respect them. -- Donald Trump, January 9, at a televised meeting with Members of Congress ...
... Charles Blow: John Kelly's "hostility toward immigration has been evident from the beginning of his time in the administration. When Kelly was brought on as chief of staff in July, The Nation warned, 'John Kelly's promotion is a disaster for immigrants,' pointing out that in just six months as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, he turned it into 'a deportation machine.'... While at the D.H.S., Kelly even considered separating immigrant parents from their accompanying children if they enter the country illegally.... One of Kelly's primary targets has been the Temporary Protected Status program.... On this issue of Trump's racist immigration and deportation policy, he is not only complicit, he is a co-conspirator."
... Heather Caygle & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "House Democrats left a meeting with top White House officials Wednesday seemingly no closer to reaching a deal on immigration or government funding before a critical Friday deadline. Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said their hour-long meeting with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was 'positive' -- a dramatic change in tone from their contentious encounters with him in the past -- but mostly a rehashing of talking points that doesn't bring the two sides closer to an agreement." Mrs. McC: Maybe that's because Kelly is even more a racist than Trump. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly told Democratic lawmakers Wednesday that some of the hard-line immigration policies President Trump advocated during the campaign were 'uninformed,' that the United States will never construct a wall along its entire southern border and that Mexico will never pay for it, according to people familiar with the meeting. The comments were out of sync with remarks by Trump, who in recent days has reiterated his desire to build a border wall that would be funded by Mexico 'indirectly through NAFTA.'"...
... David Ferguson of RawStory: "[In the meeting, John Kelly] ... praise[d] the business acumen of Mexica’s drug cartels, saying that a physical border wall as Trump promised during his 2016 campaign is impractical because drug lords will get their wares into the country regardless. 'Drug cartels will always find a way to get their drugs in so long as there's demand in the U.S.,' Kelly said. He added that this is to be expected from people who 'are very smart and good businessmen.' The comment reportedly set of a murmur of disquiet in the room. Lawmakers later told the Post they 'found it odd that Kelly would credit cartel leaders who often authorize murders as smart or good businessmen.'" --safari ...
... SO THEN. Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "President Trump directly contradicted his own chief of staff on Thursday and said his position on building a wall between the United States and Mexico had not 'evolved. Mr. Trump's chief of staff, John F. Kelly, told some Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday that Mr. Trump had 'evolved' on the issue of the wall, and that the president was not 'fully informed' when he promised to build such a barrier last year. In an early-morning Twitter post, Mr. Trump took the unusual step of publicly pushing back against his own White House, signaling a disconnect between the president and his staff at a critical time of negotiations with Congress to avoid a government shutdown. 'The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water..... ....The Wall will be paid for, directly or indirectly, or through longer term reimbursement, by Mexico, which has a ridiculous $71 billion dollar trade surplus with the U.S. The $20 billion dollar Wall is "peanuts" compared to what Mexico makes from the U.S. NAFTA is a bad joke!]'" ...
... Jonathan Blitzer of the New Yorker has a pretty good rundown of the "evolution" of DACA legislation -- up to Trump's latest pronouncement. Blitzer includes some insider wrangling & concentrates also on Sen. Lindsey Graham's up-and-down relationship with the Nutty President*. ...
... AND Jelani Cobb of the New Yorker traces the root of Trump's nativism to the Borough of Queens, "the most ethnically diverse urban area in the United States. (Some experts estimate that as many as eight hundred languages are spoken there.)" ...
... So that was insightful, but let's find out what Eric thinks. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During an interview on his father's favorite TV show on Wednesday, Eric Trump dismissed racist comments his dad recently made about African countries, and claimed the only color President Trump cares about is 'green.' 'My father sees one color -- green,' Trump said on Fox & Friends. 'That is all he cares about. He cares about the economy. He does not see race. He is the least racist person I ever met in my entire life.'"
Michael Shear & Gina Kolata of the New York Times: "Cardiologists not associated with the White House said Wednesday that President Trump's physical exam revealed serious heart concerns, including very high levels of so-called bad cholesterol, which raises the risk that Mr. Trump could have a heart attack while in office.... Dr. David Maron, the director of preventive cardiology at Stanford University's medical school, said Wednesday that it was alarming that the president's LDL levels remain above 140 even though he is taking 10 milligrams of Crestor, a powerful drug that is used to lower cholesterol levels to well below 100. Dr. Maron said he would 'definitely' be worried about Mr. Trump's risk for having a heart attack if the president were one of his patients. Asked if Mr. Trump is in perfect health, Dr. Maron ...[said]: 'God, no.'" ...
... What's the Matter with Doc Jackson? Dana Milbank: "Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson was so effusive in extolling the totally amazing, surpassingly marvelous, superbly stupendous and extremely awesome health of the president that the doctor sounded almost Trumpian. 'The president's overall health is excellent,' he said, repeating 'excellent' eight times: 'Hands down, there's no question that he is in the excellent range. ... I put out in the statement that the president's health is excellent, because his overall health is excellent.... Overall, he has very, very good health. Excellent health.' And just how excellent is His Excellency's excellent health, doctor? 'Incredible cardiac fitness,' was Dr. Jackson's professional opinion. 'He has incredible genes.... He has incredibly good genes, and i's just the way God made him.'" Dr. Bandy Lee, a psychiatrist suggests Jackson is suffering from what I, Mrs. Bea McCrabbie, would call Stockholm Syndrome & what she calls "powerful sycophancy." ...
... Gail Collins: "Donald Trump has passed his mental test. This may come as either a relief or a shock.... Skeptics pointed out that the report's enthusiastic descriptions of the president's tiptop condition seemed inconsistent with some of the statistics on his weight, cholesterol and plaque buildup in the arteries. If the doctor had simply said 'good for an overweight 71-year-old guy,' everybody probably could have nodded and moved forward. But the big news was the mental test.... [the test] didn't measure judgment, and there was no score to indicate whether the test-taker would, if faced with a question of what to do about immigration policy, change his position 12 times in 24 hours. Whether he would confide to several million Twitter followers that the country 'needs a good shutdown'? Whether he thinks of himself as a 'very stable genius.'" ...
... "Trump Doesn't Have Dementia. He's Just a Moron." Jonathan Chait: "Trump's supporters have taken the news of his successful physical examination with a reputable doctor as vindication. Never has a president won such frenzied praise for being declared dementia-free.... But while Trump's behavior may not be medical symptoms of a debilitating mental disease, it is clear evidence of a mind that's totally unfit for the presidency. What excuse does he have for his behavior?"
Jessica Taylor of NPR: "A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll finds that by a 53-to-40-percent margin, Americans deemed Trump's first year a failure. And by an almost 2-to-1 margin (61 to 32 percent), Americans said they believe Trump has divided the country since his election. Americans give Trump relatively positive marks on his handling of ISIS and the state of the economy -- no small things. But on just about every other issue, they disapprove of his handling of them or they think things have gotten worse -- from their views of the tax plan to the state of race relations and women's rights to immigration, health care, the deficit and foreign policy, including his approach to North Korea. Seven-in-10 Americans are now concerned about the possibility of war breaking out with the rogue nuclear nation." ...
... "America Third" Has a Nice Ring to It. Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Global confidence in US leadership has fallen to a new low, and the country now ranks below China in worldwide approval ratings, according to a new Gallup poll. The survey of opinion in 134 countries showed a record collapse in approval for the US role in the world, from 48% under Obama to 30% after one year of Donald Trump -- the lowest level Gallup has recorded since beginning its global leadership poll over a decade ago.... Germany is now seen as a global leader by many more people (41% of the sample), with China in second place on 31%. Russia has 27% approval for its global role according to the poll. In just under half of the world's countries -- 65 out of 134 -- US standing collapsed, by 10 percentage points or more. Some of the biggest losses were among Washington's closest allies in western Europe, Australia, and Latin America." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: On the upside, the leader of the free world is a woman, after all.
Jen Kirby & Libby Nelson of Vox: "There was no red carpet, but ... Donald Trump tweeted a link to his 'highly anticipated' fake news award winners Wednesday night, as promised. The link itself -- to the official Republican National Committee website -- turned out to be a bit of a fake out. 'The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later,' the link read for many for at least an hour after the announcement.... But eventually, the website rebounded, revealing the 'winners' (or 'losers').... Trump's list is a collection of some of the biggest journalistic errors of the past year (and a lesson in the perils of aggregating viral videos or sending hasty tweets). The aftermath of the stories listed also shows news organizations' commitment to setting the record straight. In almost every case, media outlets issued corrections. When reporters made mistakes, they acknowledged them repeatedly. In one instance, the reporters and editors involved resigned. Below is an annotated list, to give some context to these 'awards.' The full list is (probably) available here.” Mrs. McC: BTW, Krugman -- who took top honors -- has several times admitted his prediction (not report) was a mistake. ...
... Jordain Carney of the Hill: "GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) rebuked President Trump's attacks on the press from the Senate floor on Wednesday, urging his colleagues to publicly push back against the rhetoric. 'The enemy of the people was how the president of the United States called the free press in 2017. ... It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president used words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies," Flake said.... Flake's speech marks one of the strongest Republican rebukes of Trump from the Senate floor." Mrs. McC: See also Flake's Arizona colleague John McCain's essay, linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "More than once a day, on average, [Trump] has publicly assailed 'fake news,' 'fake polls,' 'fake media,' and 'fake stories.' Over and over again, he has told the United States not to trust what reporters say. His allies have done the same thing. This repetition -- constantly labeling real news as 'fake' -- is what has made the slur so powerful. In the run-up to the 2016 election, 'fake news' was a term used by researchers and journalists to describe hoaxes that were designed to deceive people. These made-up stories are typically promoted via social media, either to make money or spread propaganda. But after Trump won the election, he almost single-handedly turned the definition on its head. Among his supporters, 'fake news' is now a catch-all criticism for any news that Trump doesn't like." ...
... Biggest Irony in Today's News ...
... Journalistic Standards & Hush Money Saved Trump. Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: Porn star "Stormy Daniels ... was on the radar of a number of mainstream news outlets in the waning days of the presidential campaign. Reporters from ABC, Fox News, the Daily Beast and Slate.com were pursuing a potentially explosive story: that Daniels had allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, only months after Trump's wife, Melania, had given birth to their son, Barron. Yet no one went with the story.... (The Smoking Gun website had already published details of the alleged affair in mid-October, to little public notice or reaction.)... Journalists say they held back because they couldn't independently corroborate key elements of Daniels's account.... The story, in other words, failed to rise to journalistic standards, never mind that it involved a man who regularly attacks the news media for lacking standards.... The Daily Beast's executive editor, Noah Shachtman, said his publication decided not to go with a story despite having three sources confirming the affair, including one on the record, Daniels's friend Alana Evans.... Daniels herself was ready to confirm it as well, he said, but she backed out of an interview on Nov. 3, apparently after signing [a] nondisclosure agreement [in exchange for a payoff]. That defection was critical; Shachtman said the Daily Beast would have published if Daniels had confirmed what other sources were already claiming." ...
... Ben Jacobs of the Guardian: "In a newly published interview with Stephanie Clifford from 2011, the pornographic actor acknowledges an affair with Donald Trump -- contradicting a denial produced by the president's legal team last week. Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, described her 2006 rendezvous with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel suite in detail to InTouch magazine. Her account was reportedly corroborated by her friend and supported by a polygraph test and her ex-husband." The interview is here. ...
... AND In Touch plans to release the whole 5,500-word interview.
... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress: "... the Stormy Daniels Trump story matters -- beyond allegations of an affair. Here's why.... Trump's lawyer is distributing a statement denying any sexual relationship between Daniels and Trump. But there is a mountain of evidence that suggests this statement is a lie.... The story has parallels to other women's claims of sexual assault by Trump.... The story suggests Trump is vulnerable to blackmail and extortion.... In the unverified Steele dossier, there is an allegation that Russian officials have information about Trump's interactions with sex workers in Moscow that Russian agents are using as leverage.... [The Daniels hush-money story indicates] Trump ... has things to hide and is willing to go to substantial lengths to hide them." ...
... digby: "Daniels says [Trump] didn't use protection.... I don't care what Trump does with porn stars and I really don't want to know the details. But it is important that he was worried enough about it that he paid them off. And it is important that his excuse that he couldn't have done anything untoward in Russia because he's a germophobe." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: There may be some poetic justice (not to mention more irony) here. Just as the Whitewatergate investigation (of trump rival Hillary Clinton et vir) eventually morphed from a real estate probe into a sex scandal, so may the Trump-Russia scandal prove out the famously "unverified" "golden rain" incident. That is, Mueller's team may be compelled, partly because of the Daniels payoff, to seek verification of Trump's romps with Russian sex workers. The team may never be able to verify whether or not Russian spies threatened Trump or made a pact with Trump, but it is fair to assume that the Russians retained evidence to embarrass -- and perhaps blackmail -- a high-profile American having sex in a hotel located in Moscow. We may yet be in for an updated version of breathless reporters cold-reading live on-air excerpts of the Starr report as it was still being to news organizations. One of the LOL moments of the whole debacle was the fastidious Bob Schieffer of CBS News reporting on "semen stains." ...
... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Stephen K. Bannon ... will be interviewed by investigators working for the special counsel in the Russia investigation instead of testifying before a grand jury, according to a person familiar with the matter, a sign that Mr. Bannon is cooperating with the inquiry. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, had subpoenaed Mr. Bannon to appear before a grand jury this week. But Mr. Bannon has agreed to cooperate with Mr. Mueller's investigation and will be interviewed in the less formal setting of the special counsel's offices in downtown Washington." ...
... Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Steve Bannon made one conspicuous slip up in his closed-door hearing on Tuesday with the House Intelligence Committee, according to four sources with direct knowledge of the confidential proceedings. Bannon admitted that he'd had conversations with Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and legal spokesman Mark Corallo about Don Junior's infamous meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016." ...
... Eamon Javers of CNBC: "The White House believed it had an agreement with the House Intelligence Committee to limit questions for Steve Bannon only to events on the presidential campaign, and not during the ousted former chief strategist's time in the Trump administration, an official told CNBC. According to the White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, staffers for the committee and the White House on Friday discussed the parameters of Bannon's testimony.... Then, hours into Bannon's closed-door testimony on Tuesday, Bannon's lawyers informed the White House from Capitol Hill that the questions would extend beyond the scope of what the White House understood the agreement to be. At that point, the White House told Bannon not to answer any further." (Also linked yesterday.) ...
... Sonan Sheth of Business Insider: "Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, but refused to answer questions about events that took place during the campaign and his conversations with ... Donald Trump since then. Lewandowski is the latest official to stonewall the committee as it probes Russia's election interference and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow. Lewandowski was present during a number of critical events that investigators are keenly focused on.... Ranking member Adam Schiff said Lewandowski's apparent refusal to answer questions about events that took place during the Trump campaign, as well as his conversations with Trump since then, was 'completely unacceptable.' He added, 'Yesterday, [Lewandowski] said on Fox that he would answer every question that we had. Today, however, he refused.'... Lewandowski's reluctance, NBC News reported, was not based on the possibility that Trump may claim executive privilege to prevent him from disclosing details about key events. Rather, Lewandowski said he was not prepared to answer certain questions and suggested returning at a later date." The cited NBC News report follows. ...
... Mike Memoli of NBC News: "A top Trump administration official answered a full range of questions from House investigators Wednesday, just one day after former White House strategist Steve Bannon told them he was under instructions from the West Wing to remain silent, sparking new negotiations between Congress and the White House that could lead President Trump to formally invoke executive privilege for the first time in the Russia probe. Though lawmakers described White House deputy chief of staff Rick Dearborn as fully cooperative with the House Intelligence Committee during more than four hours of questioning, the same could not be said of the day's second witness, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.... Lewandowski said he was simply not prepared to provide those answers Wednesday, offering to return at a later date." ...
...** Rachel Maddow posits some credible theories as to why Bannon clammed up during Congressional testimony. She links it to Mueller's investigation trying to preserve any evidence from falling into the hands of Trump Confederates like David Nunes & Trey Gowdy. You can speed the video up to around 16:30 to catch the gist of her argument. --safari
** Peter Stone & Greg Gordon of McClatchy News: "The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy. FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.." ...
... Jonathan Chait has more on the NRA-Russia connection. Here's the kicker: "There is no more untouchable faction of the Republican Party than the NRA. Already, Trump's allies have coalesced behind him and used their investigative power to support his wild claims that the FBI is part of a sinister deep-state conspiracy against him. If the NRA is swept up in Robert Mueller's probe, the pressure on Republicans to fire or hamstring his investigation would ramp up to overwhelming levels."
** Summer Meza of Newsweek: "It's been one year since Jared Kushner ... assumed office, but he's yet to receive full security clearance for his role in the White House. The unprecedented delay in clearance represents a violation of security norms and suggests that Kushner continues to receive special treatment due to his relationship to President Donald Trump, according to legal experts familiar with the process." --safari
Julian Borger, et al. of the Guardian: "The US intends to maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria, not only to fight Isis and al-Qaida but also to provide a bulwark against Iranian influence, ensure the departure of the Assad regime and create conditions for the return of refugees, the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, said on Wednesday." --safari ...
...Pentagon Puzzle Time. Elizabeth Preza of RawStory: "... Rex Tillerson on Wednesday provided stunning insight into how Donald Trump's executive branch functions, telling an audience at Stanford University he receives print-outs of the president's tweets and has to figure out how to 'use' them to craft the administration's foreign policy. Describing it as 'actually ... not a bad system,' Tillerson said he never gets a heads up about the latest topic on Trump's Twitter feed. 'There's not a whole lot I';m gonna do until it's out there,' the Secretary of State said." --safari: This is so embarrassing for everyone involved.
Propaganda Wars. Noor Al-Sibai of RawStory: "On Tuesday evening, reporter Yashar Ali pointed out that the Twitter accounts of former Fox News hosts Greta Van Susteren and Eric Bolling appear to have been hacked by pro-Turkish trolls. The connection, both Ali and The Hill pointed out, appears to be that both Van Susteren and Bolling are on the 45-person list of people President Donald Trump follows on Twitter. The hackers also released direct messages sent to Trump from Bolling's compromised account." --safari...
... Propaganda Wars. Sean Illing of Vox: "Last month, AP reported that Russian intelligence agencies were pursuing journalists around the world in the same way they typically target politicians and government employees from hostile states. Much of this activity, according to the report, was aimed at dissident journalists and bloggers who are perceived as threats to the Russian regime. But Aki Peritz, a former CIA analyst and current adjunct professor at American University, believes that certain foreign spy agencies are very likely targeting one specific private institution: Fox News.... I reached out to Peritz and asked him to lay out his case. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows." --safari
Choe Sang-Hun & Mark Landler of the New York Times: "North and South Korea reached an agreement Wednesday for their athletes to march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics next month, a powerful gesture of reconciliation that further complicates President Trump's strategy for dealing with the nuclear-armed regime of Kim Jong-un. The budding détente scrambles its strategy of pressuring the North, with sanctions and threats of military action, to give up its nuclear arsenal. This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in Washington that Pyongyang is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.... The prospect of crowds from North and South Korea cheering together would be a striking contrast to the threats of war from Mr. Trump.... The Olympic agreement could bolster President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who has been pushing for dialogue with the North.... 'I'd sit down, but I'm not sure that sitting down will solve the problem,' Mr. Trump said in an interview with Reuters.... In the interview, Mr. Trump was uncharacteristically critical of Russia, saying it had weakened the global sanctions against North Korea, even as China was doing more."
Purifying the Race. Yeganeh Torbati of Reuters, via RawStory: "Haitians will no longer be eligible for U.S. visas given to low-skilled workers, the Trump administration said on Wednesday, bringing an end to a small-scale effort to employ Haitians in the United States after a catastrophic 2010 earthquake. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the change less than a week after President Donald Trump reportedly ... referring to [Haiti] as [a] 'shithole' countr[y]. Trump has denied using that word.... Belize and Samoa were also removed from the lists, for risks stemming from human trafficking and not taking back nationals ordered removed from the United States, respectively. Just a few dozen Haitians entered the United States on the visas each year since they were given permission to do so in 2012 by the Obama administration, according to DHS data." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: One reason this is a little odd: "Mar-a-Lago... reportedly hires more of its seasonal foreign workers from Haiti than it does from nearly any other country."
Ben Protess of the New York Times: "As a photographer for the Department of Energy, Simon Edelman regularly attended meetings with Secretary Rick Perry and snapped pictures for official purposes. Now he is out of a job and seeking whistle-blower protections after leaking photographs of Mr. Perry meeting with a major energy industry donor to President Trump. Late last year, Mr. Edelman said, he shared with journalists photos he shot at the private meeting between Mr. Perry and the campaign contributor, Robert E. Murray, the head of one of the country's largest coal mining companies, Murray Energy. One photo showed the two men embracing; another captured the cover sheet of a confidential 'action plan' that Mr. Murray brought to the meeting last March calling for policy and regulatory changes friendly to the coal industry.... Based on the 'action plan' and conversations he overheard, Mr. Edelman said, Mr. Perry had tilted the administration's energy policy to favor Murray Energy and other coal companies.... Mr. Murray [also] has been a financial backer of Mr. Perry...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... For more on that nice Bob Murray, let's ask John Oliver (at about 4:40 mins. in & at about 12:30 in):
... AND, yeah, Murray did sue Oliver .
"Alternative Facts". Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a White House news briefing on Wednesday, Ed O'Callaghan, principal deputy assistant attorney general, struggled to defend a misleading Department of Justice report that claims three out of four individuals convicted in recent years of international terrorism or terrorism-related offenses were 'immigrants.'... On Wednesday, O'Callaghan was pressed about that issue -- and had no good answers." --safari ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: O'Callaghan needs to take lying lessons from Trump & Mrs. Huckleberry.
... Amanda Gomez of ThinkProgress: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) omitted key facts at a hearing Wednesday in his attempt to highlight Medicaid's role in fueling the opioid crisis. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, released a report the same day, drawing connections between the public insurance program and opioid epidemic." --safari
Congressional Race
Jonathan Martin & Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Republicans are scrambling to save a heavily conservative House seat in western Pennsylvania, dispatching President Trump to the district on Thursday while preparing a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to stave off another embarrassing special election defeat in a district that was gerrymandered to stay Republican. When Representative Tim Murphy was pushed out of the House last year after the revelation that he encouraged a mistress to have an abortion, Republican leaders gave scant thought to his successor. The odd-shaped district in the southwestern corner of the state was drawn to skirt Democratic Pittsburgh and concentrate conservative-leaning, steel and coal country voters. Mr. Trump will appear at an industrial equipment sales and repair company to trumpet both Mr. Saccone and the recently passed tax overhaul. Vice President Mike Pence will follow on Feb. 2...."
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Dana Millbank' on WAPO asks the question (we're all curious about) "... is Trump’s doctor okay? "Hey, Doc, take two aspirin, call me in the morning" on Trump's medical test results"
Nice to have RC Comments up and live again!
Finished reading "Fire & Fury" last night...verrrrry interesting is my overall take (despite all the grousing about Wolff's errata). Bannon sure opened up—throughout the book are tales of his outrage at the stoopid comments coming from others, especially Hope Hicks (he stopped talking to her months ago) and he heaps extra special abhorrence upon the Jarvankas. Also, Trump's warning to Mueller "...don't go after my financials." he couldn't have given the Special Prosecutor a better road map. Yet for all Bannon's frustration about people not thinking before they speak, he was certainly uninhibited in his own outspokenness and didn't seem to pay attention to who was listening!
I think Mueller must be looking forward to a conversation or two with Sloppy Steve.
STORMY WEATHER–––when the man at the helm ain't got it together–-it's raining all the time...
Looking at the circumstances of what's been going down of late it appears we may be experiencing a topsy turvy world that smacks of a wacky Charlie Chaplin film or––given our president's* proclivity for porn pussies another rendition of "Deep Throat" might be a better scenario. Under normal circumstances these allegations combined with all the other women who accuse him of sexual abuse would be so horrific and shocking that he, acting as a president of the "greatest nation on earth" would simply have to resign. But here it's been treated as just one more notch on a belt of lies, destruction, and chaos.
Yesterday we had Jeff Flake take to the floor and use Stalin as a comparison to Trump's behavior and over at Fox they were having a meltdown–-Michelle Malkin screaming, "How dare he!! Comparing "our" president to Stalin!" Notice the cozy connection of the "our" as though we all think of him in a similar way. The outrage displayed by those who cannot and will not budge from their loyalty is indicative of the early "I could shoot someone on the streets of New York, and it wouldn't make a difference"–––you betcha Bob!
And right now the DACA dreamers are having nightmares. This is front and center and needs to be addressed. Can you imagine going from day to day not knowing if you will be deported to a country you've never lived in? How can this be a non-starter? How can we not fix this without political plays being batted back and forth.
And while all this is going on, including a possible government shut-down–-the probes continue–-with Bannon as our main man at the moment: this is the guy Mueller wants for himself–-Steve has a treasure trove of goodies to hand out and Mueller didn't want congress to get first taste.
And back to the world of smut: I'm on the same page as Marie: The Steele dossier will, in the end, be spot on about the showers of gold and those who participated in it. Yes, Trump's body guard says no, but he wasn't outside the door all night AND he, too, might have been paid off––"Here, Bud, a goodly sum to shut you up"–––and you bet Trump is vulnerable to blackmail. To the latter: How much money has gone forth to shut people up? Where did that money come from?
Something else to ponder: the abject lack of loyalty Trump displays toward Melania then and I imagine now. She obviously has made a pact with the devil and has decided the perks are worth it?
I still recall what Liz Smith told us years ago about Ivanka. Liz, celebrity columnist from N.Y.C., who knew "everyone worth knowing," was a friend of Ivanka who would cry on Liz's shoulder for years telling her about Donald's forays into other bedrooms. She told Liz that after she had the children he was no longer attracted to her and even though she has plastic surgery and a breast augmentation, he shunned her and of course Marla Maples took up the reins until she too, was replaced. Like race horses––– once they've had their day, are put away––somewhere.
The Trumpian Creed, the immutable identity of wallness:
"'The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it"
Of course it is. So, when seeking to fund it, that is all you know, and all ye need to know. Asking for project criteria would be heretical.
The Wall IS the Wall, saecula saeculorum.
News Flash! Republicans Demand Medicaid Expansion be Ended. Medicaid BAD for Poor People!
The stupidest man in congress, Ron Johnson (C-MN) (ha, you knew that) is on a tear to save poor people from getting healthcare. Why? The newest Confederate rationale for denying healthcare to Americans is that Medicaid is fueling the opioid crisis. No kidding. They really say that.
And how's this for logic? The rationale goes like this: Medicaid expansion allows more people access to healthcare. More access to healthcare means more prescriptions are written. That means OPIOID CRISIS!
Did you follow that? Me neither. It's like saying it rains more in the spring. Therefore, there's more water on the ground. More water on the ground means gas prices are going up!
It really is that stupid.
But here's what's really going on. There's nothing nefarious (or incredibly unusual) about more prescriptions being written. More people are getting healthcare. More doctor visits, especially for people who haven't had healthcare for years (or ever) means more prescriptions may be written to address a variety of health issues. Duh. But that's their smoking gun. That's why Medicaid needs to be killed.
But here's another data point they decline to pass on. In the state of Louisiana, for instance, where Confederate attorney general, Jeff Landry is against a single cent for Medicaid expansion, prescriptions for opioids are DOWN. Oops.
So the "logic" that more prescriptions mean more opioid prescriptions, therefore OPIOID CRISIS is DOA.
But facts don't matter if idiots like Ron Johnson and Jeff Landry find a talking point that fits with Confederate wish list items (denying healthcare to Americans who "don't deserve it"). These people must stay up late at night dreaming up ways to fuck the poor and the elderly. Unfortunately, their ways are as illogical and stupid and mean spirited as they are.
To sum up the POTUS for today:
WH Chief of staff declares Trump an idiot.
Trump promises to sign any immigration bill. Trump says he will only sign a bill with a Trumpwall.
Trump has sex with a porn star.
Just another typical day.
Can't wait to hear from the WH doctor after Trump has a heart attack.
And again, as I said many times, Trump is not a liar. Now, in the same context, he is not a racist. There are only two groups of humans that matter. The rich and famous and the people who kiss his ass. It turns our that currently, the group is white. He opposes Palestinians but loves Saudi Arabians. Dictators of all races are loved. In other words the only thing that matters to Trump is Trump.
If a Haitian billionaire showed up, he would be welcome in the WH.
In the comment above, I could have referred to DiJiT's "wallt-anschauung."
But I didn't, it would have been too ...
Patrick,
There's just a bit of a cognitive dissonance (!ZAP!) reading a comment about a moron like Trump and coming across a line from Keats. But thanks for reminding us that despite the ugliness of Trump and his Confederate minions, there is still beauty in the world.
I suppose if Keats were alive today, he might have to change that poem, for Trump, of course, to "Ode on a Grecian Formula Urn". I'm pretty sure, however, that with Trump around, Keats' bride of quietness would not remain "still unravish'd" for long.
I wonder if he'd pay her hush money.
"Walltanschuanng"...I love it.
A favorite trope for many anti-immigration Trumpers, whose families were once immigrants themselves (meaning pretty much everyone), is the handy get-out-of-rational-argument-claim "These people are terrible. Why don't they come here legally like my ancestors did? Harrumph!"
Kevin Jennings, president of the Tenement Museum in New York City has a great answer.
For many of those immigrants, coming here legally meant getting off the boat. That was it. No extreme vetting, no background checks, no racial or religious profiling. At least not yet.
In an interview with NPR's Kelly McEvers, Jennings has another reminder for immigrant hating wingers:
"McEVERS: So what would you say to the argument that we're hearing that people coming to the U.S. now have to respect the laws of the land whether you like them or not? How does that sound to you?
JENNINGS: Well, I just would say to people who are saying that - careful what you wish for. If those laws had existed when your ancestors came, you'd probably still be living in Italy or Poland. The reality is, immigration law is a moving target in America. It has not existed for most of our history, and when it has existed, it has waxed and waned with different attitudes towards people coming into the country."
Jennings continues..."At the Tenement Museum, we tell the stories of families that came in the 1800s and 1900s, and the majority of them just got off the boat and walked over to the Lower East Side and started a new life. It wasn't until the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which was designed to - as exactly as it sounds - to exclude people of Chinese descent from entering the United States that we had any federal restriction on who could enter the country of any kind."
I'm sure Trump would love to pass a Shithole Countries Exclusion Act. Confederates in congress would line up to help, all those whose ancestors just got off the boat and started a new life.
Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go?
Here is a perfect encapsulation of Trump's up and down, on, off, hot, cold, back and forth bullshit that has everyone's head spinning, delivered succinctly by that great American political philosopher, James Francis Durante.
@Patrick: This is America! Speak English here! I hadda look up all your subversive, secret foreign words! And one of them, wouldntcha know it, was FAKE.
One reason I love the comments is that you-all make me smarter every day. And, yeah, Akhilleus is right: "Walltanschauung" is brilliant!
How is it that the most conscience-less, immoral, unethical administration in US history has a new "Conscience and Religious Freedom" division in Health and Human Services?
That religious freedom bullshit cracks me up too. Basically it's the freedom to impose your religious beliefs on others who don't share them. That's not religious freedom, that's religious imposition or enforcement.
And conscience? Ha! What does the conscience of a narcissist like Trump look like? An empty room? A bag of shit? A vacuum? A black hole? Bad acts go in and never come out.
So what we have then is the Black Hole and Religious Enforcement Division. Sounds like something out of a sci-fi novel of a dysfunctional future? Well, welcome to Trump World.
@Akhilleus: Keats??? I thought that was Gertrude Stein, abridged, from her poem "Sacred Emily: "Wall is a wall is a wall is a wall."
Anyhow, the Idiot at 1600 Pa. Ave. turns out to be an idiot savant. Can a president name himself U.S. poet laureate? I'm guess President* Trump can.
Marie,
Patrick's secret foreign words are, I'm thinking, from one of the standard Latin prayers from the Mass. Many of us (Catholics, that is) grew up with it, especially those of us old enough to remember the Latin Mass. It's from the Gloria:
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
I'm sure in the White House they now begin every day with something a bit different:
Gloria Trumpy. (They don't worry about the son(s) or the Holy Spirit or any other damn thing besides Donaldo.)
And given Ivanka's designs on the White House (I'll be the first woman president!) the part about (Trump)World without end is probably embedded in their tiny brains. Hey, remember what Dr. Feelgood said yesterday about Trump, if he had taken better care of himself, he could live to be 200. Jesus. Thank god for no exercise, Doritos and Diet Coke. (One other funny thing--among many--is the idea of drinking a diet tonic. What good does it do to go with diet anything when you're gonna drink twelve of them?)
Wall without end. Amen.
@Akhilleus: Yeah, & I think Dr. Jackson's "good genes" comment was a not-so-subtle bow to Trump's racism. If Trump were from Kenya, like one of Jackson's former patients, he'd be dead.
So if I'm understanding you, the whole doxology is "Gloria Trumpy. Wall without end. Amen." I'll bet John Kelly will be saying that out loud every morning from now on while kneeling in front of the Oval Shrine.
Marie,
That was when Gertrude lived in Walla Walla.
And you may be right about Poet Laureate Trumpy:
There once was a rhyming baboon
Whose name was Donnie the Loon
His rhymes were internal
His words quite infernal
But delighted his voters, the goons.
Marie,
Ooooh...good pick on that genes comment. I missed that one. Trump doesn't seem well versed in a lot, but I'm betting he's got the White Supremacist argot down pat. He'd appreciate that bit about his "superior" genes. And that press conference was exceedingly weird. Is that guy self-medicating or is he succumbing to Trumpticemia? Seems like everyone who gets too close to Trump comes down with something.
There are all kinds of stupid, not all having to do with I. Q. measures.
Two instances today linked by Safari and Akhilleus, the one having to do with a government report about a purported link between immigrants and terrorism, the other a chart that implies Medicaid caused the opioid epidemic.
Both were obviously crafted to appeal the the Pretender's (I love the uneducated) base with their conflated variables and cart before the horse "logic." They are definitely stupid reports, but I don't believe they were crafted by stupid people. Bad people perhaps, but not measurably stupid unless include in that measure some of those things that self-interest and lockstep tribal loyalty blind people to.
A case in point: NYTimes review of Deneen's "Why Liberalism Failed" consternated the hell out of me, enough to rouse me to a Times comment about a book I will never read.
" I hesitate to criticize a book I haven't read but the three NYTimes references to it, laudable as they are intended to be, hardly persuade me to waste my time with it.
Anyone who pretends to consider the present in light of the past and doesn't notice that some major things have changed about the way we live today misses most of what he or she should be talking about.
Government is fundamentally about two things. The way we organize our communities and the way we choose to distribute their resources. Obviously a world population now over seven billion presents challenges in both those areas we have not met, in large part because we don't even talk about the effect of large numbers on organization.
Obviously, organizing large numbers requires more regimentation, and more regimentation necessarily limits the individual freedoms the loss of which authors like Deneen make a living decrying
We also choose not to question our economic system's effectiveness at distributing resources. Right now it's doing a good job of distributing them upward with distinctly negative consequences for the kind of individual freedom the Right likes to tout. But we don't want to talk about that either.
Instead we retreat into silly nostalgia, a hearkening to some kind of earlier Edenic perfection, laced with dollops of religion. Eden, I would note, had only two people and even with that small number things didn't work out too well.
Avoidance? Denial? Loads.
At all useful? Not a a bit."
In short, another kind of stupid, this time embarrassingly from an academic who ought to know better. Deneen does profess at Notre Dame, a school I darned near attended, good little Catholic boy that I was, but that does not come near being an adequate excuse.
"Eden, I would note, had only two people and even with that small number things didn't work out too well."
Ken, quite right. And here's what else we can say about Eden. If it were a sitcom, it might be A Guy, A Chick, and a Snake. But that leaves out the Architect. Two People, a Snake, and God (who arranged it all). This is one of those things that the religious tend to overlook.
I'm not going to get into a whole big megillah about the Book of Genesis, but here we have an omniscient, omnipotent being who entices his creations to so something they're not "supposed to do". Like eating an apple. But as soon as they do, they're condemned. And not for a few days, but forever. And all their descendants are condemned too. (How omnipotent is a being who absolutely craves the obeisance of imperfect beings he has created, and made to be imperfect? I mean, what the hell (so to speak)? That's fucked up.)
So, what kind of god does that shit? He (or she, or it) can do whatever the fuck they like. Does he really need the adulation and worship of half-assed, defective creatures he has created with the likelihood that they could fuck up? Creatures whose half-assedness and defectiveness he has embedded? That seems more than a bit half-assed itself and cruel, not to mention stacking the deck.
Anyway, that's a longer argument. The larger point, Ken's point, I believe, is how is it that so many Trump supporters cleave to a demonstrably imperfect and questionable foundational fairy tale in order to lord it over everyone else? It's like someone saying that all science is debatable because, according to some antediluvian scroll, two plus two does not equal four. And anyone who says different, needs to go to hell.
I can think of plenty of current Confederate politicians and their supporters who need to go that way, but not anyone who questions the shady and specious foundations of their belief system.
And even more dubious, is the fact that their Glorious Leader is one of the worst offenders of their god's commands!!!
Ken has it right. Go figure.
Oh, man. This is good.
Bridge Closer and Career Creep, Chris Christie, now EX-governor of New Jersey, tried to sleaze his way through the VIP entrance at Newark Airport, but was stopped by the State Police, who sent him back in the line with the other "nobodies" (ie, people like all of us).
"The two-term Republican, who left office on Jan. 16, was blocked from a VIP entrance he had used for eight years, and directed to stand in Transportation Security Administration screening lines at Terminal B like anyone else, according to a person familiar with the incident."
Boo-hoo-hoo. I'm guessing Christie is now concocting a plot to get anyone connected with making him stand in line with the "nobodies". And to think, he tried to become president, failed miserably at that, then, after spending months as a testicle cozy for the current idiot in the White House, was fired from that job. He tried to prove his worth as a testicle licker, but lost that job too.
And now he's just a jamoke, like all the reg'lar people he used to piss on.
Karma eez a beetch, no?
Next stop for Christie, waiting in that long line for cabs at Penn Station when he goes into the city. Like everyone else.
Ha!
I was just listening to NPR on my walk (I know, I always have hope it's the OLD-time NPR that was liberal-leaning) and was blessed to hear the creep fronting the new agency for religious "freedom" from having to do their medical jobs, ie, abortions, but it was unclear that MY nonreligious fee-fees would ever take precedence when in conflict with the religious bigots yapping today. That was followed by wisdom offered on 45's first year and his "vision/mission" (as if he had one--)by Karl Rove and David Bossie. At that point, NPR was turned off and I came home to write them a complaint. I know it does no good, and I tell them they get no money, but they don't care. They are filling the airwaves with pablum and jinglecrap, so it doesn't matter. Crikes. Oh yes, cocktails right now.
What a delight to wade through all these comments–-such clever piggies (a fond embrace here) you all are. And I must tell you Ak, that you bringing back Jimmy Durante gave me a thrill! He's as fresh today as he was then––and like Marie looked up the damn word thinking it was German––Walltanschauung and note to Ken: Remember that without that original sin in that garden of earthly delights there wouldn't be the CHURCH––-money for nothing and the chicks for free? Not on your life–-lots of currency for the old redemption theme.
It looks like jinglecrap could be another new word, nothing on the googles yet