;)
The Commentariat -- November 29, 2017
Afternoon Update:
Let This Sink in. Eileen Sullivan & Dan Bilefsky of the New York Times: "President Trump shared videos supposedly portraying Muslims committing acts of violence on Twitter early Wednesday morning, images that are likely to fuel anti-Islam sentiments popular among the president’s political base in the United States.... Mr. Trump retweeted the video posts from an ultranationalist British party leader, Jayda Fransen, who has previously been charged in the United Kingdom with 'religious aggravated harassment,' according to news reports.... British politicians were quick to condemn Mr. Trump's tacit endorsement of the videos. The office of Theresa May, the British prime minister, said, 'It is wrong for the president to have done this.'... David Lammy, a member of Parliament for the Labour Party, echoed that statement on Twitter. 'Trump sharing Britain First. Let that sink in. The President of the United States is promoting a fascist, racist, extremist hate group whose leaders have been arrested and convicted. He is no ally or friend of ours.'" ...
... Nico Hines of the Daily Beast: "Donald Trump retweeted an apparent snuff video to his 40 million followers Wednesday morning, with footage depicting what looked like a brutal murder carried out by an Islamist mob that had been posted by a far-right British political activist.... Two of [Jayda] Fransen's other videos -- which were also retweeted by the president -- were apparently aimed at inciting religious hatred. One was titled 'Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!' and the other was 'Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!' According to Dutch media, the teen seen bullying the kid on crutches turned out not to be a Muslim or an immigrant." ...
... Fake Is Good, After All. AND Mrs. Huckleberry tells reporters it doesn't matter whether or not the videos are real. "The threat is real," she said. ...
... Update. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "The White House that complains almost daily about 'fake news' doesn't care if these videos are fake news as long they serve real purposes. Sanders just tacitly endorsed the concept of propaganda, and she said it out loud.... The White House just publicly sanctioned the use of false information to further its political goals.... That's a hell of an standard operating procedure. It's even more remarkable that it was acknowledged publicly."
Greg Sargent: Trump "is trying to render reality irrelevant.... He's asserting a species of power -- the power to evade constraints normally imposed by empirically verifiable facts, by expectations of consistency, and even by what reasoned inquiry deems merely credible. The more brazen or shameless, the more potent is the assertion of power. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: This technique works on Trump's bozo base; they are either too dumb to discern fact from fiction, or they don't care as long as Trump keeps promising to give them some bit of whatever it is they want. But it should be clear by now that it does not work on those whom he attacks with his brazen lies.
Manu Raju of CNN: "Donald Trump Jr. has agreed to meet with the House Intelligence Committee as soon as next week, giving lawmakers their first opportunity to question President Donald Trump's eldest son over his contacts with Russians during the campaign season, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the matter.... Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina told CNN Wednesday that his panel planned to interview Trump Jr. in December." The House testimony "is expected to occur behind closed doors."
James Hohmann of the Washington Post: "Outside groups on the right are furiously mobilizing against an agreement that Republican leaders made with Bob Corker yesterday to get the tax bill through the Senate Budget Committee. The Tennessee Republican negotiated a budget deal in September that the tax cuts cannot increase the national debt by more than $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. Now he's concerned about various gimmicks and overly rosy assumptions in the bill that would almost certainly mean the true impact on the debt is far greater than that. So the retiring senator has been pushing in recent days to include a 'trigger' that would automatically increase taxes down the road if the bill fails to generate the level of economic growth that Republicans leaders keep publicly predicting. It's not clear what exactly GOP leaders promised Corker, who declined to share specifics with reporters.... In addition to Corker, the compromise is being crafted to win over other on-the-fence Republicans like James Lankford (Okla.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Jerry Moran (Kan.).... Despite the rift, the sense in the Capitol is that there is real momentum toward getting this done. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) appeared ready to fall in line after a private meeting with Trump yesterday."
Noir Guy. Jeff Baenen of the AP: "Garrison Keillor, the former host of 'A Prairie Home Companion,' said Wednesday he has been fired by Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of improper behavior. Keillor told The Associated Press of his firing in an email. In a follow-up statement, he said he was fired over 'a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard.' He didn't give details of the allegation. 'It's some sort of poetic irony to be knocked off the air by a story, having told so many of them myself, but I'm 75 and don't have any interest in arguing about this. And I cannot in conscience bring danger to a great organization I've worked hard for since 1969,' Keillor said. Minnesota Public Radio confirmed Keillor had been fired, saying it received a single allegation of 'inappropriate behavior.'" ...
... Here's the statement from Minnesota Public Radio. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If some of youse guys are genuinely shocked by all of the men accused of "inappropriate behavior," step back & think of your mothers, wives, daughter, female friends, etc. For any of us women who were not shut-ins all our lives, the only surprise is that the suits are bothering to fire their high-profile "talent." Until very recently, it was the victims who got the ax. I speak from personal experience. ...
... With Friends Like These. So last night, the Washington Post published one of Keillor's regular columns for the paper. You may have seen it already. In the column, Keillor defends Al Franken. For Franken to resign, Keillor wrote, "is pure absurdity, and the atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness. No kidding." ...
... Okay, Absurd. BUT for the most bizarre -- and macabre -- political story of the week, we go to the Hague where a televised sentencing hearing for a Croatian war criminal is going on: ...
... Mike Corder of the AP: "A convicted war criminal from Croatia swallowed what he said was poison and died Wednesday after a United Nations court in the Netherlands upheld his 20-year sentence for committing crimes against humanity during the Bosnian war of the 1990s. In a stunning end to the final case at the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, former Croatian general Slobodan Praljak yelled, 'I am not a war criminal!' in a courtroom and appeared to drink from a small bottle. Medical staff at the tribunal in The Hague rushed to Praljak's side before he was taken to a local hospital, where he died, tribunal spokesman Nenad Golcevski told reporters at the court. The courtroom where the dramatic scene unfolded was sealed off. Presiding Judge Carmel Agius said it was now a 'crime scene' and that Dutch police could investigate."
*****
I hope we get through this. -- Fleeting Expletive, in yesterday's Comments
Mike DeBonis, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Republican push to rewrite the tax code gained momentum Tuesday after a Senate panel advanced the measure and several wavering lawmakers signaled that they are leaning toward backing the bill. Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee unanimously voted to send the party's tax package to the Senate floor, setting up a final vote as soon as this week. The measure moved forward when two GOP senators on the committee who had threatened opposition, Sens. Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Ron Johnson (Wis.), instead supported the legislation. Corker said he had reached an agreement with GOP leaders that would limit the tax plan's impact on the debt. Johnson, who has repeatedly threatened to vote against the bill because he says it favors corporations over other businesses, said he continued to have concerns but voted to 'make sure this process moves forward.'" ...
... Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg: "Major companies including Cisco Systems Inc., Pfizer Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. say they'll turn over most gains from proposed corporate tax cuts to their shareholders, undercutting ... Donald Trump's promise that his plan will create jobs and boost wages for the middle class. The president has held fast to his pledge even as top executives' comments have run counter to it for months. Instead of hiring more workers or raising their pay, many companies say they'll first increase dividends or buy back their own shares." ...
... Ezra Klein: "The Senate GOP tax bill is remarkable in how many problems it creates, in how certain those problems are compared to the relatively uncertain benefits the bill intends to deliver, and -- importantly -- in how easy the whole thing would be to fix. Start with how the bill is paid for. It isn't. These are deficit-financed tax cuts." Klein goes on to list some of the known problems the bill creates. ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Do any GOP members of Congress ever read this stuff? The most cursory check of the headlines would tell them their tax scam is a tax scam. You have to assume they know it & don't care.
New York Times: "The two top Democrats, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, said their party will skip a planned meeting with Mr. Trump and congressional leaders that was scheduled for this afternoon after the president posted on Twitter this morning that he was meeting with 'Chuck and Nancy' to discuss ways to avert a government shutdown and wrote 'I don't see a deal! 'Given that the President doesn't see a deal between Democrats and the White House, we believe the best path forward is to continue negotiating with our Republican counterparts in Congress instead,' Mr. Schumer and Ms. Pelosi said in a statement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's the full TrumpenTweet: Meeting with 'Chuck and Nancy' today about keeping government open and working. Problem is they want illegal immigrants flooding into our Country unchecked, are weak on Crime and want to substantially RAISE Taxes. I don't see a deal! So Trump tells three big fat defamatory lies about the Democratic leaders in one tweet (oh, hooray for 280 characters) as prelude to a negotiation, apparently thinking this will cow Chuck & Nancy. Um, no. ...
... Update. Nobody Wants to Sit with Donald. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump tore into Democratic leaders on Tuesday for skipping a legislative strategy session at the White House. Trump said he is 'not surprised' that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) decided not to attend.... 'Now it's even worse. Now it's not even talk. Now they're not even showing up to the meeting,' Trump said.The president spoke at the White House, flanked by two empty chairs with placards for Schumer and Pelosi. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) sat at opposite ends of a long table inside the Roosevelt Room."
George Hunter of the Detroit News: "A former staffer of U.S. Rep. John Conyers said the veteran lawmaker made unwanted sexual advances toward her, including inappropriate touching, adding to allegations by other unnamed former employees that have prompted a congressional investigation. Deanna Maher, who worked for him from 1997 to 2005, told The Detroit News that the Detroit Democrat made unwanted advances toward her three times. Maher is the second former Conyers staffer to go public with accusations about the veteran lawmaker." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Lissandra Villa & Paul McLeod of BuzzFeed: "Former Michigan Rep. Candice Miller, a Republican who chaired the committee that oversees the Office of Compliance for four years, says she consistently refused requests to settle sexual harassment claims -- including one that appears to match the details of a complaint against Rep. John Conyers.... 'I was not going to be approving spending taxpayer dollars to protect members of Congress who were behaving like dogs. Let them pay for it out of their own darn pocket,' she said.... The payment [to Conyers' accuser] appears to have been made by designating the woman as a 'temporary employee' for three months, despite her being banned from the office, rather than through a treasury fund set up to handle cases like Conyers'." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie : That is, it appears Conyers used a subterfuge to pay off the woman. That sounds like misuse of taxpayer funds to me: he paid her for working while she wasn't working. ...
... Elise Viebeck, et al., of the Washington Post: "The political future of Congress's longest-serving member, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), appeared precarious late Tuesday as leaders pressured him to resign over allegations he sexually harassed multiple female aides. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and members of the Congressional Black Caucus encouraged the veteran lawmaker to step down as soon as this week after a fourth accuser came forward Tuesday morning, according to a senior Democratic aide...." ...
... Deirdre Walsh & Manu Raju of CNN: "Several Congressional Black Caucus members are in talks to get veteran Rep. John Conyers to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct, several Democratic sources told CNN on Tuesday."
The Madness of King Donald. Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Shortly after his victory last year, Donald J. Trump began revisiting one of his deepest public humiliations: the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape of him making vulgar comments about women. Despite his public acknowledgment of the recording's authenticity in the final days of the presidential campaign -- and his hasty videotaped apology under pressure from his advisers -- Mr. Trump as president-elect began raising the prospect with allies that it may not have been him on the tape after all.... 'We don't think that was my voice,' Mr. Trump told [a Republican] senator [in January].... Since then, Mr. Trump has continued to suggest that the tape that nearly upended his campaign was not actually him.... Mr. Trump's falsehoods about the 'Access Hollywood' tape are part of his lifelong habit of attempting to create and sell his own version of reality.... In recent months, they say, Mr. Trump has used closed-door conversations to question the authenticity of President Barack Obama's birth certificate. He has also repeatedly claimed that he lost the popular vote last year because of widespread voter fraud...." ...
... Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump has expressed certainty that the special-counsel probe into his campaign's possible collusion with Russia will be finished by the end of the year, complete with an exoneration from Robert S. Mueller III, according to several friends who have spoken with him in recent days. Trump has dismissed his historically low approval ratings as 'fake' and boasted about what he calls the unprecedented achievements of his presidency, even while chatting behind the scenes, saying no president since Harry Truman has accomplished as much at this point." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Dr. Marvin S., who is an expert on this kind of behavior, has been writing for more than a year that Trump isn't lying, that he believes these fantasies. If you didn't believe Marvin then, you should believe him now. ...
... Jonathan Chait is coming around: "The prevailing interpretation of Donald Trump, shared by all his enemies and many of his allies, is that he is a con man.... But new reporting has opened up a second possibility: The president has lost all touch with reality.... He does not merely tell lies in order to gull the public, or to manipulate allies. He tells lies in private that he has no reason to tell.... If Trump actually has the ability to convince himself of his own lies, it would suggest a possibility far more dangerous than even his critics have previously assumed. He might be in the grip of a mental health issue, or at least one more serious than mere sociopathy. And the mutterings that he might need to be removed from office through the 25th Amendment could grow more serious than many of us expected." ...
... Steve M. has a different take, but the effect is the same: "I think Trump gaslights himself. I think he tells himself that he's never done anything to embarrass himself, and that any setbacks in his life were just traps set sadistically for him by people who resent his success and his brilliance. This isn't dementia. It's a sort of Zen -- he's banished the notion of real truth from his mind in favor of the notion that a superior being can make truth whatever he wants it to be, not just for the suckers but for himself. I think he really believes what he tells himself. And that's terrifying."
... digby: "You might wonder how this can go on. Who knows? But at least they'll get their motherfucking tax cuts."
Mark Landler, et al., of the New York Times: "North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Tuesday that flew both higher and longer than previous such launches, a bold act of defiance against President Trump after he put the country back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism. The president reacted cautiously to news of the launch, stating, 'It is a situation that we will handle.' But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed greater concern, emphasizing what he said were technical advances on display in the 53-minute flight, which began when the missile was launched northeast of the capital, Pyongyang, and ended nearly 600 miles to the east, when it landed in the Sea of Japan. 'It went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they've taken,' Mr. Mattis said...." ...
... Anna Fifield of the Washington Post: "North Korea launched what appears to be another intercontinental ballistic missile, the Pentagon said Tuesday, with experts calculating that the U.S. capital is now technically within Kim Jong Un's reach. The launch, the first in more than two months, is a sign that the North Korean leader is pressing ahead with his nation's stated goal of being able to strike the United States' mainland and is not caving in to the Trump administration's warnings. The missile logged a longer flight time than any of its predecessors."
Mike Flynn Was Corrupt from the Git-Go. Greg Jaffe, et al., of the Washington Post: "The week after President Trump's inauguration, national security adviser Michael Flynn forwarded a memo written by a former business associate and told his staff to fashion it into a policy for President Trump's approval, according to two people familiar with the exchange. The proposal -- to develop a 'Marshall Plan' of investment in the Middle East -- was being pushed by [IP3,] a company that Flynn had advised during the 2016 campaign and transition. The firm was seeking to build nuclear power plants in the region.... To push the idea 'in the first week of the administration without any policy process made no sense,' said a person familiar with episode.... 'It was a business proposal in the form of a policy paper.'... A White House official said the National Security Council staff handled Flynn's apparent conflict of interest appropriately. 'They did their best to tamp it down,' the official said. IP3 said in a statement that the company never paid Flynn and that he did not accept its offer to serve as an adviser, despite his statement on the disclosure form that he held such a role." ...
... Sam Thielman of TPM: "Flynn's proposal was simple and brazen..., the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Flynn's plan to promote his former colleagues' business interests in the Middle East while serving in the Trump administration was previously known -- what wasn't known is how far he managed to get with it. The [plan]...: Flynn's business associates would build and operate dozens of nuclear plants worth hundreds of billions of dollars in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East.... [Yesterday], the Journal reported that Flynn ... instructed his colleagues on the National Security Council to draft a plan for approval by the president based on memos from the group of retired military officers now working in the private sector. Since Flynn's resignation, Flynn's old business partners have sought out other avenues to get approval for the project ... including Jared Kush[n]er. The White House told the Journal 'nothing came' of the meetings with Kushner." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Clearly, Flynn -- like his boss -- saw the White House as a big ole cash register. Public service, my ass. AND you have to wonder what-all Wonder Boy Kushner did to help out. Maybe nothing. Maybe not nothing. ...
... Erin Banco of the Intercept: "Shortly before Donald Trump's inauguration, Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and head of Frontier Services Group, traveled to the Seychelles, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, and met with a Russian official close to President Vladimir Putin. According to the Washington Post, the meeting between the Russian and Prince, who presented himself as an unofficial envoy of Trump, took place 'around January 11' and was brokered by Mohammed bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, to establish a backchannel between the president-elect and Putin. The identity of the Russian individual was not disclosed, but on January 11, a Turkish-owned Bombardier Global 5000 charter plane flew Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, to the Seychelles, flight records obtained by The Intercept show.... The RDIF is a $10 billion sovereign wealth fund created by the Russian government in 2011.... While it is legal to do business with RDIF in certain circumstances, there are several nuanced restrictions that if ignored or overlooked can easily lead to a violation." ...
... Billy House of Bloomberg: "The House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday afternoon interviewed the translator who attended a controversial meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 between Donald Trump Jr. and a Russian lawyer at the height of the presidential campaign. The closed-door interview with Anatoli Samochornov was confirmed by a congressional official familiar with the committee's agenda." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: On the surface, Trump & his friends in Congress had a great day yesterday: Trump won the CFPB battle & the Senate Budget Committee passed the abominable snow job on a party-line vote, with the help of Republicans supposedly on the fence. BUT the Russia investigation keeps chugging along even as Donnie Delusional is checking his mail for that "complete exoneration" letter from Bob Mueller.
More Nazi Sympathizers. Luke Barnes of ThinkProgress: "Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai is going on the offensive in his attempt to allow corporations to carve up the internet for cash. On Tuesday Pai claimed that tech companies were being hypocritical by advocating for net neutrality while they 'block or discriminate against content they don't like' -- specifically conservative content.... He singled out Twitter, claiming that the company had a 'double-standard when it comes to suspending or de-verifying conservative users' accounts as opposed to those of liberal users.' 'But the unspecified 'conservatives' that Pai was referring to weren't conservatives at all -- they were neo-Nazis and white supremacists." --safari
The Mooch Bows out Gracelessly. Maggie Astor of the New York Times: "Anthony Scaramucci, whose brief tenure last summer as White House communications director ended after a profane phone call to a New Yorker reporter, resigned on Tuesday from an advisory board at Tufts University after several weeks of conflict with students. Mr. Scaramucci said he was stepping down from the advisory board of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy to spare Tufts, his alma mater, unnecessary scrutiny. But he stood by his threat to sue The Tufts Daily, a student newspaper, and one of its writers if the writer did not apologize for critical op-eds published this month."
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Jason Schwartz of Politico: "Adding fuel to its growing feud with ... Donald Trump, CNN told Politico it will be boycotting the White House Christmas party for the media this year. 'CNN will not be attending this year's White House Christmas party,' a CNN spokesperson said. 'In light of the President's continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as his invited guests. We will send a White House reporting team to the event and report on it if news warrants.'" ...
... The "Trump Effect". Patrick Wintour of the Guardian: "A tweet by Donald Trump accusing CNN of purveying 'fake news' has been seized on by Libyan media to challenge a report by the US broadcaster which suggested modern day slave auctions were being held in the country.... [I]n a sign that the US president's persistent attacks on the credibility of American news outlets has a real world effect, the broadcaster Libya 218 used the tweet to question the credibility of the CNN video." --safari
Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "Dozens of Air Force service members charged with or convicted of serious crimes were never reported to the federal gun background-check database as required, Air Force officials said on Tuesday. The revelation came after the Air Force disclosed that it had failed to report the domestic violence conviction of Devin P. Kelley, the gunman who opened fire at a church in Texas this month. Under federal law, Mr. Kelley's court-martial conviction for domestic assault should have prevented him from purchasing at a gun store the rifle he used in the attack, as well as other guns he acquired over the past four years.... Air Force officials say they are reviewing the results of the inquiry to date to assess whether to take any punitive action against personnel who failed to report Mr. Kelley's conviction. The Air Force review is only one part of a wide-ranging investigation into the background-check reporting process underway inside the military and the Justice Department in the aftermath of the church massacre."
Spencer Hsu & Thomas Heath of the Washington Post: "A federal judge refused to block President Trump's choice of budget director Mick Mulvaney from serving as acting director of the prominent federal consumer watchdog agency on Tuesday, denying a request by Leandra English, the No. 2 official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to serve in his stead. In denying English's request for a temporary restraining order, U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly acknowledged that the case raised constitutional issues."
Adam Goldman & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A former militia leader from Libya was convicted on Tuesday of terrorism charges arising from the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed a United States ambassador and three other Americans. But he was acquitted of multiple counts of the most serious offense, murder. The defendant, Ahmed Abu Khattala, 46, was the first person charged and prosecuted in the attacks, which took on broader significance as Republicans and conservative news outlets sought to use them to damage the presidential ambitions of Hillary Clinton, who was then the secretary of state. Yet the seven-week trial in federal court in Washington received relatively little attention from such quarters. Mr. Khattala was convicted on four counts -- including providing material support for terrorism, conspiracy to do so, destroying property and placing lives in jeopardy at the mission, and carrying a semiautomatic firearm during a crime of violence -- but acquitted on 14 others. He faces life in prison. The mixed verdict showed the difficulty of prosecuting terrorism cases when the evidence is not clear-cut." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: You might think confederates didn't really care about the deaths of four Americans. So those seven (or was it eight?) House investigations were about nothing more than pilliorying a political arrival? I'm so shocked.
Sam Levin of the Guardian: "Federal prosecutors targeting anti-Trump protesters are relying on video evidence from Project Veritas, a far-right group under fire this week for allegedly trying to dupe the Washington Post with a false story of sexual misconduct. The US attorney's office submitted the footage in court on Tuesday as part of an ongoing trial against activists who protested Donald Trump's inauguration and now face conspiracy and rioting charges that could lead to decades in prison.... The video comes from Project Veritas' infiltration of a meeting where activists discussed plans to disrupt inauguration activities. The use of Project Veritas footage is the latest example of prosecutors relying on evidence linked to controversial far-right sources. The US attorney's office has also submitted video from the Oath Keepers, a rightwing militia group that has been present at 'alt-right' rallies." --safari
Marwa Eltagouri of the Washington Post: "The Washington Post on Monday published a report about a woman who falsely claimed Roy Moore sexually assaulted her as a teenager -- and who appeared to work with Project Veritas, an organization that uses deceptive tactics and secretly recorded conversations in an effort to embarrass its targets. Shortly after the investigation was published, Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe tweeted a video of what he called his 'confrontation' with one of the authors of The Post investigation.... The video was heavily edited.... In the full version of the video, O'Keefe repeatedly declined to answer questions about the woman and her affiliation with Project Veritas.... Project Veritas's edited version leaves out most of The Post's questions...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Wow! Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times: "NBC has fired its leading morning news anchor Matt Lauer over a sexual harassment allegation, the network's president for news said in a memo to staff on Wednesday. 'On Monday night, we received a detailed complaint from a colleague about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace by Matt Lauer,' Andrew Lack, the NBC News president, said in the memo. He said the allegation against Mr. Lauer 'represented, after serious review, a clear violation of our company's standards. As a result, we've decided to terminate his employment. While it is the first complaint about his behavior in the over 20 years he's been at NBC News, we were also presented with reason to believe this may not have been an isolated incident.'... The 'Today' staff learned the news shortly before going live.... The move by NBC represents one of the few examples of a company taking pre-emptive action over sexual harassment complaints before any allegations had become public." ...
... AND This: "Mr. Lauer's dismissal was seized upon by President Trump, who went on to ask in a tweet when executives at NBC and Comcast, the network's parent company, would 'be fired for putting out so much fake news.'"
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Great photo with Rutenberg's article: Lauer interviewing Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Lauer was roundly criticized for going hard on the girl candidate while letting off the deranged candidate -- named directly above -- with softball questions.
Joe Romm of ThinkProgress: "Prices for new wind and solar plants continue to plunge at an astonishing pace. Driven by steadily improving technology and the use of auctions to set prices, the cost of solar and wind dropped 25 percent this past year -- and even more in some key emerging markets like China, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. That drop comes on top of an 80 percent reduction in the previous 10 years, which is why building new renewable energy sources is now cheaper than just running old coal and nuclear plants, as a new analysis recently detailed." --safari
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