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Commencement ceremonies are joyous occasions, and Steve Carell made sure that was true this past weekend (mid-June) at Northwestern's commencement:
~~~ Carell's entire commencement speech was hilarious. The audio and video here isn't great, but I laughed till I cried.
CNN did a live telecast Saturday night (June 7) of the Broadway play "Good Night, and Good Luck," written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, about legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow's effort to hold to account Sen. Joe McCarthy, "the junior senator from Wisconsin." Clooney plays Murrow. Here's Murrow himself with his famous take on McCarthy & McCarthyism, brief remarks that especially resonate today: ~~~
~~~ This article lists ways you still can watch the play.
New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.
Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.
New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~
~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”
NPR lists all of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners. Poynter lists the prizes awarded in journalism as well as the finalists in these categories.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. — Anonymous
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. — Edward R. Murrow
Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns
I have a Bluesky account now. The URL ishttps://bsky.app/profile/marie-burns.bsky.social . When Reality Chex goes down, check my Bluesky page for whatever info I am able to report on the status of Reality Chex. If you can't access the URL, I found that I could Google Bluesky and ask for Marie Burns. Google will include links to accounts for people whose names are, at least in part, Maria Burns, so you'll have to tell Google you looking only for Marie.
Sad! Jenna Johnson of the Washington Post: "On Sunday morning, President Trump expressed frustration that his campaign is under investigation over possible ties to Russia's plot to influence the 2016 election but that his former opponent Hillary Clinton is not facing the same level of scrutiny. In four tweets sent over 24 minutes, Trump wrote: 'Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?), the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia, "collusion," which doesn't exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R's are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!'
Frances Robles & Christina Caron of the New York Times: "Gov. Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico has asked the governing board of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to 'immediately' cancel its contract with Whitefish Energy, he announced on Sunday. The decision came two days after the Federal Emergency Management Agency expressed 'significant concerns' about how Whitefish, a small Montana company, won a contract for up to $300 million to rebuild part of Puerto Rico's electrical grid after it was severely damaged last month by Hurricane Maria. Whitefish is based in the hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke."
*****
A Calendar of His Own: When 10/26/2017 Is Not 10/26/2017. Jacqueline Thomsen of the Hill: "President Trump tweeted Saturday that the sealed files about the assassination of President John F. Kennedywere released 'long ahead of schedule.' 'JFK Files are released, long ahead of schedule!' Trump tweeted.... The Trump administration released about 2,800 files surrounding the case late Thursday, a date that had been set by Congress in 1992. Trump had blocked the release of about 3,000 of the documents late Thursday. But the administration announced Friday that they would be releasing redacted versions of the documents over the next few months.'" ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: One of the instant tests doctors give patients to see if they are mentally sound -- I just saw it on a teevee show yesterday, so it must be true! -- is whether or not the patients know what day and year it is. Trump just flunked that test, in writing. Twenty-fifth Amendment, please! I'm kinda not kidding, in the the same way Paul Ryan "was sort of joking" when he said Trump's being in Asia would help him get his tax bill passed. Seriously, when a person is so far gone he defends his missteps (or his administration's missteps) by denying what MO/DA/YR it is, there's something way out of whack in the space between his ears.
A Charles Boyer of Our Own (If Not So Debonair). Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker: "On Friday, while prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert Mueller, obtained their first grand-jury indictments in their investigation of potential collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia, the President of the United States was busy gaslighting. Trump tweeted, of course, that 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump. Was collusion with HC!' The President was referring to an episode that took place in 2010 whereby the Obama Administration gave a Russian firm permission to buy a Canadian company that had the rights to mine a great deal of uranium in the U.S.... I highly recommend this detailed account from FactCheck.org, which concludes, 'Donald Trump falsely accused former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of giving away U.S. uranium rights to the Russians and claimed -- without evidence -- that it was done in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.'... Trump is once again spreading lies to confuse the public about the Russian attack on American democracy last year.... Trump's typical response to any allegation of wrongdoing is to accuse his accuser of the same crime." ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post also has a very useful "guide to the latest allegations" on "the 'dossier' and the uranium deal." Mrs. McC: These sensible reviews will have no impact whatsoever on Trump or his hair-on-fire Congressional enablers. ...
... John Cassidy of the New Yorker: Pundits have been speculating on the who & what-for special counsel Robert Mueller is expected to indict this week. "What isn't speculation is the fact that, five months into his investigation, Mueller has brought a first set of criminal charges. By the standards of recent special prosecutors, that is fast work, and it confirms Muelle's reputation as someone who doesn't like to dally. Now that he has started arresting people, there is no reason to suppose he will stop. And that is precisely the message he wants to send." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The video below is super. Many thanks to NJC for linking it. ...
Violent. Ryan Parker of the Hollywood Reporter: "Roger Stone has been banned from Twitter permanently after a vulgar meltdown Friday aimed at CNN reporters, which included threats, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. The close friend and former adviser to Donald Trump went on a tirade after CNN reported Robert Mueller approved the first charges into his investigation on the Russian meddling of the 2016 presidential election.... A source with direct knowledge of the situation told THR the suspension is permanent.... '.@donlemon stop lying about about the Clinton's and Uranium you ignorant lying covksucker !!!! You fake news you dumb piece of shit,' Stone wrote in one tweet." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Speaking of ignorant, lying cocksuckers (she said demurely), it appears from his limited command of the English language that Stone is more ignorant than Trump.
Delusional. Aaron Rupar of ThinkProgress: "During a Saturday morning interview on Fox & Friends, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was asked how he thinks news special counsel Robert Mueller has filed his first charges is being received in the White House. Lewandowski ... responded by insisting that what's needed is new scrutiny of the nonexistent 'Clinton administration.'"
Crooked Donnie, Ctd. Annie Gowen of the Washington Post: "President Trump's eldest son, Donald Jr., is expected to launch two residential projects in India for the Trump Organization in the coming weeks, continuing the family's promotion of the Trump empire despite concerns over the president' potential conflicts of interest with foreign governments. The Trump Organization vowed early on there would be 'no new foreign deals' during Trump's tenure as president; these two projects in India were inked before his election. But the high-profile launches demonstrate that the pledge comes with an asterisk -- agreements made years ago can move forward or be revitalized, such as the Trump' 2007 deal to build a luxury beachfront resort in the Dominican Republic that may be revived, according to an Associated Press report."
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Fusion GPS, the research firm behind the dossier containing allegations about ... Donald Trump and Russia, its bank and the House intelligence committee have reached an agreement over the panel's subpoena of Fusion's financial records. The agreement comes amid revelations that Perkins Coie -- the law firm representing Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Democratic National Committee -- and the conservative Washington Free Beacon separately paid the firm to conduct research on Trump."
They Really Don't Know What They're Doing. Kimberly Kindy & Aaron Davis of the Washington Post: "As Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston in late August, Federal Emergency Management Agency Director William 'Brock' Long said he wanted to avoid a repeat of Katrina-style temporary housing that shattered New Orleans communities.... But less than a week later, FEMA went on a mobile home-buying binge, spending nearly $300 million on 4,500 units, the largest purchase of the homes since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, federal contracting records show. Another 1,700 mobile homes in FEMA's inventory were also readied. Yet most of those homes remain warehoused. FEMA has made the hunt for permanent rental housing its top priority and is reluctant to deploy the notorious homes and trailers.... That decision is crippling recovery efforts in states where thousands of people remain in shelters and hotels more than six weeks after massive hurricanes destroyed their homes. Now in Texas and Florida -- where rental stock is inadequate -- state officials are cranking up the pressure on FEMA to release the mobile units." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Of course, if the object was to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on items which FEMA deemed unusable, then they do know what they're doing. AND it's worth remembering that last month "The federal government auctioned off disaster-response trailers at fire-sale prices just before Harvey devastated southeast Texas, reducing an already diminished supply of mobile homes ahead of what could become the nation's largest-ever housing mission."
Emily Atkin of the New Republic: "That fishy contract to rebuild Puerto Rico's electric grid is now a bona fide scandal.... the U.S. government is scrutinizing PREPA's [Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority] decision to award such a large contract to such a small and deeply shady company. Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general to review the contract, and a congressional committee is investigating whether any 'inappropriate conduct' led to the decision. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also said it has 'significant concerns' with how PREPA procured the deal. It was suspicious enough that the $300 million contract, as The Washington Post revealed earlier this week, had been awarded to Whitefish Energy, a tiny and unknown company based in Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's hometown in Montana. The Daily Beast then reported that Whitefish's CEO is friends with Zinke, and that the company is primarily financed by a large donor to ... Donald Trump.... The contract also shields Whitefish from legal liability if they screw up the job, and prevents government authorities from auditing the company."
The GOP Is Dreaming up Ways to Screw You. Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: Congressional Republicans' "tax bill includes giant reductions in business taxes. Figuring out how to pay for tax cuts is ... especially complicated in today's bitterly partisan atmosphere. Republican lawmakers intend to push through a bill without any Democratic support -- but there is a catch. The single-party strategy in this case triggers a rule that requires the policy to have no impact on the budget at the end of 10 years. To make the math work, lawmakers need to come up with the revenue to pay for the cuts sooner rather than later. That's where 401(k)'s come in. Rather than allow workers to continue delaying their tax payments, the Republican leadership wants to collect tax revenue on most new contributions upfront so they can use it to pay for those expensive corporate tax cuts. That's the equivalent of a middle-class tax increase." The GOP plan also would "cap the amount of tax-deferred [401(k)] contributions at $2,400 a year...." Emphasis added.
NEW. Peter Keating of New York: "The new[ly-released Kennedy] papers do add to the case for a cover-up, but it's a different cover-up than buffs brought up on Oliver Stone's batshit-crazy JFK are looking for: It's not a plot to kill Kennedy that government officials have spent the past 54 years hiding, it's all kinds of other dirty pool."
Beyond the Beltway
Doug Stanglin & Stephanie Ingersoll of USA Today: "Opponents outnumbered white nationalists Saturday in peaceful 'White Lives Matter' rallies in Tennessee that were punctuated by taunts and chants from both sides. In Shelbyville, the site of the first rally, some 200 white nationalists -- met by nearly twice as many counter protesters -- carried a Confederate flag and chanted for closed borders and deportations at a mid-morning gathering.... The protesters showed up here and in Shelbyville, 25 miles south, despite comments by Gov. Bill Haslam that 'these folks' were not welcome in the state." ...
... According to this report by Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post, it would appear that counter-protesters not only outnumbered the bigot brigade, they also out-prepared them. So finally, "In Murfreesboro..., a second set of counterprotesters lined the roadway, ready to challenge attendees of the second rally. But the rally didn’t happen; the bus of white supremacists never showed up."
Pamela Brown, et al., of CNN: "A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter. The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are. A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined to comment." ...
... Sharon LaFraniere & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "Natalia V. Veselnitskayaarrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said.... But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia's most powerful officials, the prosecutor general Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika's office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim. The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya's account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner ... and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman. It also suggests that emails from an intermediary to the younger Mr. Trump promising that Ms. Veselnitskaya would arrive with information from Russian prosecutors were rooted at least partly in fact -- not mere 'puffery,' as the president's son later said." ...
... Brandon Carter of the Hill: "A top donor to President Trump's 2016 election effort asked the campaign's data firm if it could help organize hacked emails released by WikiLeaks on Hillary Clinton, according to a new report. A source familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Rebekah Mercer, a billionaire supporter of Trump, exchanged emails with Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix about the hacked emails." Mrs. McC: I'd have such a sad if a right-wing billionaire babe would up in jail for consorting with the enemy in a criminal enterprise. ...
... Ken Vogel & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor [-- hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer --] was the first to hire the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump -- including a salacious dossier describing ties between Mr. Trump and the Russian government -- website representatives told the House Intelligence Committee on Friday. According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination. In April 2016, Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee also retained Fusion GPS to research any possible connections between Mr. Trump, his businesses, his campaign team and Russia.... The Free Beacon has a history of employing so-called opposition research firms to assist in news articles critical of targets ranging from Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton." ...
... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "The Washington Free Beacon disclosed in congressional testimony on Friday that it is the mysterious client that initially paid for opposition research on Donald Trump performed by Fusion GPS, the firm that later worked with a former British spy to produce a dossier of claims about ties between Trump and Russia. Just three days earlier, the Free Beacon, a conservative news site founded in 2012, told its readers that before Democrats hired Fusion GPS in April 2016, the firm's work “was funded by an unknown GOP client while the primary was still going on.... President Trump and his allies have sought to cast Fusion GPS as a shadowy, illegitimate outfit that produced a 'fake' dossier. And the Free Beacon this week has published such characterizations unchallenged -- without noting that it considered Fusion GPS reliable enough to pay for its services." ...
... Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "When Marc Elias, general counsel for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, hired a private research firm in the spring of 2016 to investigate Donald Trump, he drew from funds he was authorized to spend without oversight by campaign officials, according to a spokesperson for his law firm. The firm hired by Elias, Fusion GPS, produced research that resulted a dossier detailing alleged connections between Trump and Russia. While the funding for the work came from the campaign and the Democratic National Committee, Elias kept the information about the investigation closely held.... It is unclear who else was familiar with the arrangement [between Elias & Fusion GPS], or who knew that Fusion GPS hired a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who wrote the dossier. Clinton has not responded to requests for comment. A spokesman for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who was DNC chairwoman at the time Perkins Coie contracted with Fusion GPS, said the former chair was 'not aware' of the law firm's arrangement with Fusion.... Clinton campaign officials who said they were not aware of Elias's arrangement with the firm defended his decision to tap its resources.... Elias himself did not receive the dossier but was briefed on some of the information in it, according to his firm's spokesperson."
... Gloria Borger, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump has made it clear to the State Department that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as possible, according to three sources familiar with the President's thinking. This latest move for disclosure from the State Department comes at the same time the President called upon the Justice Department to lift a gag order on a key FBI informant in an investigation into Russian efforts to gain influence in the US uranium industry during the Obama administration. The sources described the President's interest in the release of the emails -- and the testimony of the FBI informant -- as rooted in a commitment to 'transparency.'... Taken together, these two actions could accelerate recent efforts by congressional Republicans to investigate the previous administration -- new probes that they've opened as multiple Russia investigations into the Trump campaign continue on Capitol Hill." ...
... Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "... Donald Trump alleged Friday that Hillary Clintoncolluded with Russia.... 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump,' the president wrote Friday morning. 'Was collusion with HC!' Republican lawmakers are nearing the end of their probes into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election, though it remains unclear whether they're close to concluding whether Trump associates colluded with Russians. The congressional panels plan to complete their probes by February." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Callum Borchers: "President Trump says Russia's 2010 acquisition of American uranium, approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight other agency heads, is 'Watergate, modern-age.' 'This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair,' former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night. Hannity has dubbed the uranium deal 'the biggest scandal -- or, at least, one of them -- in American history.' Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said on CNN Friday morning that 'it's exactly what people hate about corruption and politicians and the swamp.'... The argument relies on spectacular oversimplification.... Critics are free to second-guess the [decision], but the fact that every other involved agency made the same determination as Clinton's State Department undercuts the notion that her vote was bought -- unless, of course, everybody was in Russia's pocket. That really would be one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Brian Beutler: "This week, House Republicans launched two joint investigations, spanning three congressional committees, aimed at sowing confusion about the nature of Russian influence over last year's election. This isn't liberal gloss on a series of news developments that muddy a clean scandal ensnaring ... Donald Trump. Rather, it describes a documentable, partisan effort to use the levers of government to confuse the public about a foreign conspiracy -- the subject of a federal criminal investigation -- to bolster ... Donald Trump's campaign and sabotage his rivals.... The purpose of the propaganda has changed from defaming Hillary Clinton to blurring the truth about Russia's subversion of the election, but the underlying content is the same. The facts of the matter are all out in the open, as are the ways and reasons the right manipulated those facts and has now returned to them a year later. But the press, once bitten, hasn't yet learned to be shy." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post (October 24) has the sordid details -- of the fake accusations against & phony "investigations" of Clinton. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Huh. Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney from Virginia who gained national prominence when he took a temporary leading role in President Trump's Justice Department, has submitted his resignation. He plans to serve until a successor is confirmed.... Boente, a 33-year veteran of the Justice Department, was tapped earlier this year to serve as acting attorney general after Sally Yates was fired. He went on to serve as acting deputy attorney general. He is serving as acting assistant attorney general of the National Security Division and will remain in that post until John C. Demers, an attorney for Boeing who worked at the Justice Department under President George W. Bush, is confirmed."
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: President Trump "is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution. Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed's most vocal critics. The president also continues to insist that he could decide to renominate the Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, whose four-year term ends in February." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Was He Lying Then or Is He Lying Now? Ella Nilsen of Vox: Sarah Sanders "is sticking by the president's assertion that the multiple women who have accused him of sexual assault and harassment over the years are lying.... On a recording taped in 2005, Trump admitted to kissing and groping women without their consent: 'I just start kissing them -- it's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy.' But Sanders's flat denial echoed one Trump made during a press conference in the Rose Garden last week, when he called the allegations 'totally fake news' and 'made-up stuff.'" ...
... Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "While the president dismisses this as 'fake news,' the problem for the White House is that some of these women have produced witnesses who say they heard about the incident at the time -- long before Trump made his political aspirations known."
Mark Halperin Is Seriously Creepy. Oliver Darcy of CNN: "Two days after CNN first reported that five women said 'Game Change' co-author and journalist Mark Halperin sexually harassed or assaulted them during his time at ABC News, the number of accusers has grown to at least a dozen women, including four who are now sharing their accounts for the first time. Another woman, who shared her account in CNN's initial article on the condition her name not be published, is now speaking out on the record. The new accusations from the four women include that Halperin masturbated in front of an ABC News employee in his office and that he violently threw another woman against a restaurant window before attempting to kiss her, and that after she rebuffed him he called her and told her she would never work in politics or media. The alleged incidents occurred while Halperin was in a position of significant authority at ABC News, while the women were young and had little power." ...
Andrew Kirell & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: " Halperin's apparently fake interest in young women's careers and very real interest in getting in their pants also extended to undergraduate students he was supposed to be enlightening.While the star pundit issued a contrite statement Friday evening claiming the misconduct ended after he left ABC News, one woman recounted to The Daily Beast a particularly uncomfortable run-in with Halperin at her alma mater in February 2011 -- years after Halperin left ABC. Katharine Glenn was then a student at Tulane University when she was a 20-year-old junior.... [Glenn allegests that a dinner party held in conjunction with his appearance at Tulane, Halperin put his hand on her upper thigh & invited her to his hotel room to 'discuss her career.'] According to two sources who were present at the time, Halperin made such inappropriate overtures to at least two female students during his swing through Tulane -- not just Glenn. In one instance, an adjunct professor .. 'intervened,' as one ex-student described, while Halperin was making unwanted advances towards a female student." ...
... ** Dana Milbankconfesses his self-serving ignorance of the sexual harassment going on around him when he worked at the New Republic's boys' club. Marie: No point in coming down on Milbank. Millions of men & women -- including victims (#MeToo) -- have kept quiet, even when they were fully aware of a grossly hostile work environment. CBS News fired me when I objected, not to CBS management, but to the aggressor -- when he closed the door to his office & pulled out his penis. My harasser "told on me" to the network, & a woman from the network came to my office & fired me. When I told her what happened, she nodded & said she understood but, "You can't upset the talent." I learned my lesson, & when a male employee tried to rape me at my next job at ABC network, I escaped with help from another male employee. Neither of us told. Hostile work environment? They were all hostile when I was young. All of them.
Deficit Hawks Gone Extinct. Niv Elis of the Hill: "The GOP's tax plan would cause revenue to drop between $2.4 trillion and $2.5 trillion over the course of a decade, even after economic growth is taken into account, according to an analysis from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center." Update: See safari's comment below.
Senator Mitt? McKay Coppins of the Atlantic: "Senator Orrin Hatch has privately told allies in Utah that he is planning to retire at the end of his term next year, and if he does, Mitt Romney intends to run for his seat, according to five sources familiar with the situation."
Tim Egan: "We are retreating to our tribal, ethnic and primitively prejudicial quarters. Everything is about race and identity. We come from privilege, or oppression. We choose politicians based on whether they help our tribe or hurt People Like Us. This is President Trump's legacy. He has shattered the idea, eloquently expressed by President Barack Obama, that we are not 'irrevocably bound to a tragic past.' In the Trump era, we are neck-deep in that tragic past.... Trump opened the door to overt expressions of hatred."
Steve Schmadeke of the Chicago Tribune: "Former President Barack Obamahas been called for Cook County jury duty -- and plans to serve next month, the county's chief judge said Friday. Chief Judge Tim Evans told county commissioners during a budget hearing that Obama, who owns homes in Washington, D.C., and Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood, will serve next month."
Beyond the Beltway
AND Justice for All. The South Is Still Officially the Confederacy: Radley Balko of the Washington Post reports on a horrifying story of the Mississippi "justice system": a judge took the infant child of a young mother of color from her & ordered that the mother have no visitation rights because she had "abandoned" her child when she was incarcerated for nonpayment of minor fines after a car in which she & the newborn were passengers (the baby was in a carseat) in a car stopped for a traffic violation. The MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi intervened on behalf of the mother. "The good news is that the judge has now resigned and the youth court in Pearl, Miss., has been closed. But this clearly goes beyond a single judge. A police officer detained someone, causing her to be separated from her newborn, over unpaid misdemeanors. The officer then claimed she had abandoned the baby, despite the fact that it was the officer's actions, not hers, that left the child without a parent." (Also linked yesterday.)
Way Beyond
Raphael Minder & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "In a major escalation of Spain's territorial conflict, the Spanish Senate on Friday authorized the government to take direct control of the fractious region of Catalonia, just after Catalan lawmakers declared the region's independence. The dueling actions set up a potential showdown over the weekend, as Spain careened into its greatest constitutional crisis since it embraced democracy in 1978. The Senate voted 214 to 47 to invoke Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, granting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy a package of extraordinary powers to suppress Catalonia's independence drive. The measure will go into effect after it is published in the government register, which is expected to happen Friday night."
Binyamin Appelbaum of the New York Times: President Trump "is conducting the most dramatic and drawn-out search for a Federal Reserve chairman in the long history of the stolid institution.Mr. Trump is very publicly deliberating between two candidates with strikingly different views about the practice and purpose of monetary policy: Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor who has voted in favor of every Fed policy decision since 2012, and John B. Taylor, a Stanford economist who is among the Fed's most vocal critics. The president also continues to insist that he could decide to renominate the Fed's chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, whose four-year term ends in February."
Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "... Donald Trump alleged Friday that Hillary Clintoncolluded with Russia.... 'It is now commonly agreed, after many months of COSTLY looking, that there was NO collusion between Russia and Trump,' the president wrote Friday morning. 'Was collusion with HC!' Republican lawmakers are nearing the end of their probes into Russia's role in the 2016 presidential election, though it remains unclear whether they're close to concluding whether Trump associates colluded with Russians. The congressional panels plan to complete their probes by February." ...
... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "President Trump says Russia's 2010 acquisition of American uranium, approved by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and eight other agency heads, is 'Watergate, modern-age.' 'This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair,' former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka said on Sean Hannity's Fox News show Thursday night. Hannity has dubbed the uranium deal 'the biggest scandal -- or, at least, one of them -- in American history.' Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway said on CNN Friday morning that 'it's exactly what people hate about corruption and politicians and the swamp.'... The argument relies on spectacular oversimplification.... Critics are free to second-guess the [decision], but the fact that every other involved agency made the same determination as Clinton's State Department undercuts the notion that her vote was bought -- unless, of course, everybody was in Russia's pocket. That really would be one of the biggest scandals in U.S. history." ...
... Brian Beutler: "This week, House Republicans launched two joint investigations, spanning three congressional committees, aimed at sowing confusion about the nature of Russian influence over last year's election. This isn't liberal gloss on a series of news developments that muddy a clean scandal ensnaring ... Donald Trump. Rather, it describes a documentable, partisan effort to use the levers of government to confuse the public about a foreign conspiracy -- the subject of a federal criminal investigation -- to bolster ... Donald Trump's campaign and sabotage his rivals.... The purpose of the propaganda has changed from defaming Hillary Clinton to blurring the truth about Russia's subversion of the election, but the underlying content is the same. The facts of the matter are all out in the open, as are the ways and reasons the right manipulated those facts and has now returned to them a year later. But the press, once bitten, hasn't yet learned to be shy." ...
... Erik Wemple of the Washington Post (October 24) has the sordid details -- of the fake accusations against & phony "investigations" of Clinton.
Raphael Minder & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "In a major escalation of Spain's territorial conflict, the Spanish Senate on Friday authorized the government to take direct control of the fractious region of Catalonia, just after Catalan lawmakers declared the region's independence. The dueling actions set up a potential showdown over the weekend, as Spain careened into its greatest constitutional crisis since it embraced democracy in 1978. The Senate voted 214 to 47 to invoke Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, granting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy a package of extraordinary powers to suppress Catalonia's independence drive. The measure will go into effect after it is published in the government register, which is expected to happen Friday night."
AND Justice for All. The South Is Still Officially the Confederacy: Radley Balko of the Washington Post reports on a horrifying story of the Mississippi "justice system": a judge took the infant child of a young mother of color from her & ordered that the mother have no visitation rights because she had "abandoned" her child when she was incarcerated for nonpayment of minor fines after a car in which she & the newborn were passengers (the baby was in a carseat) in a car stopped for a traffic violation. The MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi intervened on behalf of the mother. "The good news is that the judge has now resigned and the youth court in Pearl, Miss., has been closed. But this clearly goes beyond a single judge. A police officer detained someone, causing her to be separated from her newborn, over unpaid misdemeanors. The officer then claimed she had abandoned the baby, despite the fact that it was the officer's actions, not hers, that left the child without a parent."
*****
Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "In the chaotic moments after an Army Special Forces team and 30 Nigerien troops were ambushed by militants in a remote corner of West Africa three weeks ago, four of the Americans were separated from the larger group. Their squad mates immediately alerted commanders that they were under attack -- then called for help nearly an hour later, as a top Pentagon official said this week -- and ground forces from Niger's army and French Mirage jets were both dispatched. About two hours later, the firefight tapering off, French helicopters from nearby Mali swooped in to the rescue on the rolling wooded terrain. But they retrieved only seven of the 11 Americans. The four others were inexplicably left behind, no longer in radio contact and initially considered missing in action by the Pentagon, a status that officials say raises the possibility they were still alive when the helicopters took off without them."
Situation Normal, All Fucked Up
... the knuckleheads are running the show. -- Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), in an interview...
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Two and a half months ago, President Trump said he was going to declare the opioid crisis a 'national emergency.' Then, for a long time, he didn't. Last week, he again said that he was about to declare it a 'national emergency,' and then he reiterated that was his plan this week. He's still not going to do it -- not really. Trump [has declared] the opioid crisis a 'public health emergency' Thursday, rather than a 'national emergency.'... As the New York Times notes, a 'national emergency' would have 'triggered the rapid allocation of federal funding to address the issue.' A public health emergency does not do that by itself. Several experts on the opioid crisis are bashing the move as a half-measure, NPR reports. In contrast, other public health officials, including some who served in the Obama administration, are arguing that the 'public health emergency' is indeed a better fit. Whatever the motivation for the scaled-back response, though, let's be clear: The president did repeatedly promise to make the crisis a 'national emergency,' using those specific words." ...
... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I suppose it's impossible to know whether Trump changed the designation to weasel out of another promise or he got rolled by some staffer & doesn't know the difference between the two designations -- the one he promised & the one he delivered. ...
... "Drugs Are Bad." Lila Thulin of Slate: "Unfortunately, Trump didn't seem to have many ideas for how to deal with the problem's complexity himself (the opioid commission he established months ago is set to present more details next week). The most specific his speech got was when he advocated for spending more money on educating youth to flat-out refuse drugs -- an approach that's been shown to be ineffective.... the most clearly articulated proposal bore a striking resemblance to Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' campaign -- Trump promised a 'massive advertising campaign to get people, especially children, not to take drugs in the first place.'... Trump echoed the sort of simplistic approach these programs apply to drug use in his speech, saying, 'There is nothing desirable about drugs; they're bad.'" ...
... Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "In early September..., former Fox News host Eric Bolling ... wrote that his only child, 19-year-old Eric Chase Bolling, had died, with 'details still unclear' but authorities saying there was 'no sign of self harm.' On Thursday, Bolling shared that he had 'just received some tragic news from Coroner in Colorado' -- that his son's death had been ruled an accidental overdose 'that included opioids.'... The official cause of death was mixed drug intoxication, including cocaine and fentanyl, according to the Boulder County Coroner. The death was ruled an accident, the coroner's office said. Bolling's news came on the same day that President Trump called the opioid epidemic the 'worst drug crisis in American history' and said his administration was declaring a public health emergency."
Ben Siegel & Conor Finnegan of ABC News: "The Trump administration broke its silence on new Russia sanctions Thursday, sending to Capitol Hill a list of Russian entities that it will sanction individuals for doing business with, following a four-week delay that infuriated senior members of Congress.... Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Ben Cardin, D-Md. -- top Republican and Democratic senators on foreign policy who called out the administration for the delays in a letter earlier this month -- welcomed the move as [a] 'step in the right direction toward holding Russia accountable for its attack on our election.'" ...
... Bill Palmer of the Palmer Report: "Of all the various scandals that have now enveloped Donald Trump, his refusal to implement Russian sanctions has put him the most directly at odds with his own party in Congress. The sanctions bill passed almost unanimously, and Trump only reluctantly signed it because his veto would have been overridden anyway.... After the Russia sanctions bill passed, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson scrapped the office at the State Department that would have been responsible for implementing the sanctions, according to a new Foreign Policy report (link). The move preemptively made it all but impossible for the Trump administration to move forward with the sanctions against Russia -- which of course was the entire point. Based on the timing, it's clear this was purposely done to undermine the sanctions bill. Moreover, it's impossible to envision Tillerson having made this move unless Donald Trump signed off on it. This means Trump has once again gone to extraordinary lengths to try to protect Russia from sanctions." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Time for inquiries from Congress & the special counsel.
Ian Shapira, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump delayed on Thursday evening the release of thousands of pages of classified documents related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, bowing to pressure from the CIA, FBI and other federal agencies still seeking to keep some final secrets about the nearly 54-year-old investigation. The president allowed the immediate release of 2,800 records by the National Archives, following a last-minute scramble to meet a 25-year legal deadline. Following lobbying by national security officials, the remaining documents will be reviewed during a 180-day period.... The government was facing a Thursday deadline for disclosing the records, and Trump had tweeted twice that the documents would be made public.... David L. Boren, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee who co-sponsored the records release law, said in a statement Thursday to The Post: 'It was my intention that all documents be released in unredacted form except for in the most rare, exceptional circumstances involving current and continuing national security concerns.'" ...
... Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "More than a dozen reporters and editors for The Washington Post combed through the documents on Thursday night. Here are some of the wildest things they found, some of which have been reported about before and some new."
Taking from the U.S.'s Poor to Give to Rich Foreigners. Paul Krugman: "Why is Donald Trumpplanning to give away $700 billion -- that's billion, with a 'b' -- to foreigners, no strings attached? You probably didn't know that he's planning to do this. In fact, he himself almost surely has no idea that he's planning to do this. But it would be one clearly predictable consequence of the tax 'reform' he and his congressional allies are trying to pass.... The benefits from cutting corporate taxes would overwhelmingly flow into after-tax profits rather than wages, especially in the first few years and probably for a decade or more. And this in turn means that the main beneficiaries would be stockholders, not workers.... Around 35 percent of a tax cut from an administration that proudly uses the slogan 'America first' -- $700 billion over the next decade -- wouldn't even go to Americans. Instead, it would be a windfall to wealthy foreigners...."
Louis du Trump. Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "... Donald Trump's administration is spending $1.75 million on furniture for the White House and offices tied to it, according to government records.... The sum, since the inauguration, is slightly larger than the roughly $1.5 million spent by Barack Obama over a similar period of time in his administration. Obama made a point of paying for some White House furnishings out-of-pocket. It's unclear if Trump has done the same.... Still, some of the expenditures hint at possible use in the residential mansion."
Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz both privately denied to congressional Russia investigators that they had any knowledge about an arrangement to pay for opposition research on ... Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.... Sitting next to Podesta during the interview: his attorney Marc Elias, who worked for the law firm that hired Fusion GPS to continue research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC, multiple sources said. Elias was only there in his capacity as Podesta's attorney and not as a witness.... On Tuesday, that law firm, Perkins Coie, wrote in a letter that ... suggested its clients -- the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- did not learn about the matter until recently.... The interviews happened before this week's disclosure that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid for the research. Senate investigators may seek to further question the two top Democrats and dig deeper on the origins of the so-called Trump dossier, one of the sources briefed on the matter said. Their remarks to congressional investigators raise the stakes in their assertion that they knew nothing about the funding because it's against the law to make false statements to Congress." ...
... Scott Wong of the Hill: "The FBI has pledged to hand over documents related to a controversial dossier linking President Trump to Russia, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday. The House Intelligence Committee has been seeking the documents for months, hoping to learn more about the bureau's relationship to the dossier's author, a former British spy named Christopher Steele, and whether the document was used by federal investigators to bolster their probe into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in August had issued two subpoenas to compel the FBI and Justice Department to turn over the documents. He set a Friday deadline for them to comply. 'The FBI got in touch with us yesterday afternoon, and they have informed us that they will comply with our document requests, and that they will provide the documents Congress has been asking for by next week,' Ryan said at his weekly news conference." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Nunes won't get the answers he wants -- like, It's all Hillary's fault -- but that's okay, because he'll make up something.
... Robert Litt in LawFare on the "(Ir)relevance of the Trump 'Dossier'": "The dossier itself played absolutely no role in the coordinated intelligence assessment that Russia interfered in our election. That assessment, which was released in unclassified form in January but which contained much more detail in the classified version that has been briefed to Congress, was based entirely on other sources and analysis."
FEMA's Suddenly-Secret Disaster Plan for Puerto Rico. Justin Elliott & Decca Muldowney of ProPublica: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency, citing unspecified 'potentially sensitive information,' is declining to release a document it drafted several years ago that details how it would respond to a major hurricane in Puerto Rico. The plan, known as a hurricane annex, runs more than 100 pages and explains exactly what FEMA and other agencies would do in the event that a large storm struck the island. The document could help experts assess both how well the federal government had prepared for a storm the size of Hurricane Maria and whether FEMA's response matches what was planned. The agency began drafting such advance plans after it was excoriated for poor performance and lack of preparation in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.... After FEMA declined to release the Puerto Rico hurricane plan, we found the agency's equivalent plan for Hawaii posted, unredacted, on the internet by the Department of Defense."
All the Best People. Trump Picks Texas Secessionist-y Gal for Top Post. Andrew Kaczynski & Nathan McDermott of CNN: "... Donald Trump's nominee to be White House senior adviser [Kathleen Hartnett White] for environmental policy wrote an essay in 1995 in which she argued that because of federal overreach, including environmental regulations, Texas would be better off as an independent republic.
All the Best People, Ctd. Eleanor Roy & Julian Borger of the Guardian: Scott Brown, the newly-minted U.S. ambassador to New Zealand & official U.S. representative to Samoa, flew with his wife, Gail Huff, in July to attend a party in Apia, Samoa, which was supposed to be a celebration of 50 years of the peace corps in the country. "But something went wrong that night. As one attendee describes it, something was 'off', and the party has been at the centre of a US state department investigation over the ambassador's conduct towards two women [who are Peace Corps volunteers].... the Guardian has, over the past two months, spoken to multiple witnesses who attended the party who claim the behaviour of the ambassador -- the first appointed by ... Donald Trump -- was worse than he has admitted.... In addition to these complaints are others that the ambassador's behaviour was 'shocking', 'culturally insensitive', 'rude' and 'undiplomatic'." According to attendees, Brown ogled the women & repeatedly shouted for everybody to shut up & listen to him. "following the publication of this story the US state department issued a statement, which can be read in full here. It said: 'Senior leadership at the state department has been in contact with Ambassador Brown and he has been counselled on standards of conduct for government employees, which also includes ambassadors.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Our Most Handsome Ambassador, who was Trump's first ambassadorial appointee as well as the inventor of Covfefe (which Scottie spells "Bqhatevwr," behaved in just the way we would expect Trump to act on a visit to Samoa. Scottie is a perfect ambassador for Trump. ...
... All the Best People, Ctd. Rachel Siegel: "Long before he became the head of a federal office for resettling refugees, E. Scott Lloyd built a career as a champion of religious values, holding strong antiabortion views that have now thrust him into the center of a national controversy.... [In his official capacity,] Lloyd has personally intervened to try to persuade unaccompanied minor girls not to have abortions, according to an HHS official. Recently, the Trump appointee played a prominent role in impeding a detained undocumented teenager from obtaining an abortion, prompting a lawsuit in federal court. Last week, HHS -- which is responsible for caring for detained unaccompanied minors -- said 'there is no constitutional right' for an immigrant minor to have an elective abortion while in federal custody.... Early Wednesday, the teenager identified as 'Jane Doe' terminated her pregnancy after an appeals court ruling in her favor. The abortion ended the girl's individual court challenge in a case that drew widespread attention and evoked the incendiary issues of abortion rights and illegal immigration. But the broader legal battle over whether the federal government may continue to dissuade, and even block, undocumented teens in its custody from having abortions is still pending in U.S. District Court in Washington."
** A Law unto Themselves. Michelle Lee & Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Congress makes its own rules about the handling of sexual complaints against members and staff, passing laws exempting it from practices that apply to other employers. The result is a culture in which some lawmakers suspect harassment is rampant. Yet victims are unlikely to come forward, according to attorneys who represent them.... [A] complaint [from an intern] likely would [be] thrown out because interns have limited harassment protections under the unique employment law that Congress applies to itself. Under a law in place since 1995, accusers may file lawsuits only if they first agree to go through months of counseling and mediation. A special congressional office is charged with trying to resolve the cases out of court. When settlements do occur, members do not pay them from their own office funds, a requirement in other federal agencies. Instead, the confidential payments come out of a special U.S. Treasury fund. Congressional employees have received small settlements compared to the amounts some public figures pay out."
Andrew Kirell & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "The morning after five women accused veteran journalist Mark Halperin of sexual harassment while he was in a powerful position at ABC News, two more women came forward with their own allegations.... According to numerous sources at NBC, MSNBC, ABC, and Bloomberg -- who previously spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity ... -- the private allegations of Halperin's sexual misconduct were an open secret, particularly in New York City and D.C. political media, for many years.... The allegations have already taken a heavy toll on Halperin's career, as he was forced to leave his job as a senior political analyst at NBC News and MSNBC for the time being at least.... Furthermore, HBO decided on Thursday not to collaborate with Halperin on a planned miniseries based on his upcoming Game Change sequel about the 2016 presidential election."
It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present. -- Charles Dickens in David Copperfield ...
I hope all these stories that women are finally sharing about their experiences will begin to effect change. -- Christina Kline, on why she is sharing her story ...
... Ass-Grabber-in-Chief. Christina Kline, in Slate, is the third woman to accuse former President George H.W. Bush of a "hard" "butt-grab" during a photo op. He simultaneously told Kline, a writer, that his own favorite book was "David Cop-a-feel." "After the photo op..., a woman who introduced herself as a friend of the Bush family was waiting to drive [my husband and me] back to the hotel. Once we were on our way, I told David [the husband] what had happened. I was still so surprised that it didn't occur to me to keep it secret. His mouth fell open.... Our driver [said]..., 'I do trust you will be ... discreet.'..." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: The press has showed little interest in ole Poppy's literary interpretations. Now imagine if the ex-Prez who was doing the Dickensian ass-grabbing were named Barack Obama.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. A Tale of Two Sex Abusers, One Largely Untold. David Bauder of the AP: "Fox has devoted more than 12½ hours of airtime to [liberal-causes donor Harvey] Weinstein since Oct. 5, when The New York Times broke the story about his misconduct, according to the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. By contrast, Fox has spent 20 minutes, 46 seconds, on the accusations against [former Fox star Bill] O'Reilly since the Times revealed many of them in April, the group said."
Beyond the Beltway
Christine Mai-Duc & Sarah Wire of the Los Angeles Times: "A vehicle drove into a group of protesters outside of GOP Rep. Ed Royce's office in Brea on Thursday afternoon, but no injuries have been reported to police so far. The alleged driver, 56-year-old Daniel Wenzek of Brea, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He was booked and released pending further investigation, according to Lt. Kelly Carpenter of the Brea Police Department."
**Frank Bajak of the AP: "A computer server crucial to a lawsuit against Georgia election officials was quietly wiped clean by its custodians just after the suit was filed.... The server in question, which served as a statewide staging location for key election-related data, made national headlines in June after a security expert disclosed a gaping security hole that wasn't fixed six months after he reported it to election authorities.... The Kennesaw elections center answers to Georgia's secretary of state, Brian Kemp, a Republican running for governor in 2018 and the suit's main defendant.... The server data could have revealed whether Georgia's most recent elections were compromised by hackers. The plaintiffs contend results of both last November's election and a special June 20 congressional runoff -- won by Kemp's predecessor, Karen Handel -- cannot be trusted." Read on. --safari: The fact that these kind of actions will go overlooked and forgotten points to a serious rot at the core of our democracy.
News Lede
New York Times: "... the American economy grew at a solid pace in the latest quarter despite the impact of the hurricanes in Texas and Florida. The nation's gross domestic product, a key indicator of economic strength, expanded at an annual rate of 3 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. Economists initially expected that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma would deal a blow to the country's steady growth, but became more optimistic in recent weeks."
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