Nightmares suck.
Yay, Food
My bff Tammy is up for a couple of days and we are planning Thanksgiving, which will be at my house. It’s going to be me, my mom and dad, Devon and her husband, my brother Seth, Tammy and her husband Brian, my aunt and uncle, and my neighbor Mrs. Wilson. At any rate, we’ve been cooking up a storm. Last night I made blackened catfish and new potatoes, and she made roasted cauliflower and her tomato pepper salad.
Tonight I fried up some cod and onion rings:
It’s nice having someone around to eat with. At any rate, tomorrow we are having Holly over for a big dinner and maybe to watch Atomic Blonde.
BTW- I highly recommend Pinch Spice Market’s blackening seasoning, which I purchased because it has no salt. I am too lazy to make my own and hate all the salt that comes in most blackening and just kills the taste of the fish, and this was really, really good.
*** Update ***
Here’s a picture of my dogs begging for treats from Tammy. Samantha was over visiting my parents and Ginny and Guesly.
There will be lots of pics tomorrow because we will be grooming all four dogs and Steve.
Open Thread: Steve Bannon, the New Karl Rove?
Good to know political reporters are hanging at the Breitbart townhouse. That's helpful. https://t.co/exjkmWPhnK pic.twitter.com/u1A6X0dflp
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) November 15, 2017
As in “the guy who’s about to have a major meltdown, live and on camera”? Somebody has it out for the man, because one doesn’t bring in professional assassin Olivia Nuzzi for just a puff piece…
When Steve Bannon was the chief strategist and senior counselor to President Donald Trump, he spent his days and often long into his nights in an office on the first floor of the West Wing, separated from the Oval Office only by his neighbor Jared Kushner and the presidential study…
The last time I saw him before he was fired in August, West Wing construction had forced him across the driveway into a temporary office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. His central whiteboard had been relocated to basement storage, and a smaller version had been wheeled in and positioned by the desk. Anywhere Bannon is existing, it seems, becomes a kind of pop-up war room.
Since leaving the White House and its adjacent properties altogether, he’s moved his operation back into a war townhouse he calls the Breitbart Embassy. Breitbart News, where he’s the executive chairman, is headquartered in the basement; upstairs, he hosts glitzy parties and plans his hostile takeover of the GOP. And, depending on which sources you believe, the Breitbart Embassy is also where he happens to live…
During his time in the White House, rumors circulated in D.C. about the Breitbart Embassy; he was thought by many in the White House press corps to be living there despite having claimed to put a barrier between himself and the website he ran that served, during the campaign and thereafter, as Trump’s very own Russia Today. During the campaign and into the current administration, there was little meaningful difference between Breitbart’s coverage of Trump and Trump’s own press releases. Under Bannon, Breitbart also incubated and amplified voices that played at the edges of right-wing extremism. In 2016, Bannon referred to it as “the platform of the alt-right,” but attempted to move closer to the middle — by hiring staff with traditional journalism backgrounds — once the alt-right became synonymous with neo-Nazism.
Even now, with ethical constraints in the rearview mirror, Bannon is unwilling to admit that he calls the Breitbart Embassy home. A source with knowledge of his real-estate holdings told me he lives in Northern Virginia and stays at the Embassy when his schedule demands it, but provided no further details or proof. Another source close to Bannon told me that wasn’t true, and for what it’s worth, the general consensus here in D.C. is the same. “Steve lives on the top two floors,” this source explained, “so Steve will do his meetings at the second-floor dining-room table.”…
Open Thread: Steve Bannon, the New Karl Rove?Post + Comments (95)
Just seventeen, if you know what I mean
Worst David Brooks column ever:
In 1982, Kelly Harrison Thorp was working as a hostess at the Red Lobster restaurant in Gadsden. She was 17 years old and a high school senior.
One day Roy Moore came into the restaurant, and she recognized him.
“He was a public figure in this small town,” she said of Moore, who at the time was in his early 30s and the deputy district attorney for Etowah County. Later that year he would mount an unsuccessful campaign for circuit court judge.
Thorp said Moore asked her if she’d go out with him sometime.
“I just kind of said, ‘Do you know how old I am?'” she recalled.
“And he said, ‘Yeah. I go out with girls your age all the time.'”
Just seventeen, if you know what I meanPost + Comments (227)
A Deep Dive Into the Russian Active Measures Against the United States
The Guardian has published a long form, deep dive piece of investigative journalism into the Russian active measures against the US, provided what is close to the definitive context of how the Steele dossier came to be, and quickly and neatly debunked both the conspiracy theory that the FBI based its inquiry on the Steele dossier and that the Clinton campaign, and the Clintons, were really conspiring with Putin and Russia against the US.
Let’s start with that last item first:
In mid-2015, the Republican front-runner had been Jeb Bush, son of one US president and brother of another. But as the campaign got under way, Bush struggled. Trump dubbed the former Florida governor “low-energy”. During the primaries, a website funded by one of Trump’s wealthy Republican critics, Paul Singer, commissioned Fusion to investigate Trump.
After Trump became the presumptive nominee in May 2016, Singer’s involvement ended and senior Democrats seeking to elect Hillary Clinton took over the Trump contract. The new client was the Democratic National Committee. A lawyer working for Clinton’s campaign, Marc E Elias, retained Fusion and received its reports. The world of private investigation was a morally ambiguous one – a sort of open market in dirt. Information on Trump was of no further use to Republicans, but it could be of value to Democrats, Trump’s next set of opponents.
The FBI, as we know from following this story closely as it emerged across 2016, based its counterintelligence inquiry not on the Steele dossier, but on intercepts and intelligence products produced by US allies and partners. (emphasis mine)
In late 2015 the British eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, was carrying out standard “collection” against Moscow targets. These were known Kremlin operatives already on the grid. Nothing unusual here – except that the Russians were talking to people associated with Trump. The precise nature of these exchanges has not been made public, but according to sources in the US and the UK, they formed a suspicious pattern. They continued through the first half of 2016. The intelligence was handed to the US as part of a routine sharing of information.
The FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of these contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow. This was in part due to institutional squeamishness – the law prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of US citizens without a warrant.
But the electronic intelligence suggested Steele was right. According to one account, the US agencies looked as if they were asleep. “‘Wake up! There’s something not right here!’ – the BND [German intelligence], the Dutch, the French and SIS were all saying this,” one Washington-based source told me.
That summer, GCHQ’s then head, Robert Hannigan, flew to the US to personally brief CIA chief John Brennan. The matter was deemed so important that it was handled at “director level”, face-to-face between the two agency chiefs. James Clapper, director of national intelligence, later confirmed the “sensitive” stream of intelligence from Europe. After a slow start, Brennan used the GCHQ information and other tip-offs to launch a major inter-agency investigation. Meanwhile, the FBI was receiving disturbing warnings from Steele.
As for how the Steele dossier came to be:
Before this, in early spring 2016, Simpson approached Steele, his friend and colleague. Steele began to scrutinise Paul Manafort, who would soon become Trump’s new campaign manager. From April, Steele investigated Trump on behalf of the DNC, Fusion’s anonymous client. All Steele knew at first was that the client was a law firm. He had no idea what he would find. He later told David Corn, Washington editor of the magazine Mother Jones: “It started off as a fairly general inquiry.” Trump’s organisation owned luxury hotels around the world. Trump had, as far back as 1987, sought to do real estate deals in Moscow. One obvious question for him, Steele said, was: “Are there business ties to Russia?”
Over time, Steele had built up a network of sources. He was protective of them: who they were he would never say. It could be someone well-known – a foreign government official or diplomat with access to secret material. Or it could be someone obscure – a lowly chambermaid cleaning the penthouse suite and emptying the bins in a five-star hotel.
Normally an intelligence officer would debrief sources directly, but since Steele could no longer visit Russia, this had to be done by others, or in third countries. There were intermediaries, subsources, operators – a sensitive chain. Only one of Steele’s sources on Trump knew of Steele. Steele put out his Trump-Russia query and waited for answers. His sources started reporting back. The information was astonishing; “hair-raising”. As he told friends: “For anyone who reads it, this is a life-changing experience.”
Steele had stumbled upon a well-advanced conspiracy that went beyond anything he had discovered with Litvinenko or Fifa. It was the boldest plot yet. It involved the Kremlin and Trump. Their relationship, Steele’s sources claimed, went back a long way. For at least the past five years, Russian intelligence had been secretly cultivating Trump. This operation had succeeded beyond Moscow’s wildest expectations. Not only had Trump upended political debate in the US – raining chaos wherever he went and winning the nomination – but it was just possible that he might become the next president. This opened all sorts of intriguing options for Putin.
I highly recommend you click across and read the whole thing. It will be well worth your time.
A Deep Dive Into the Russian Active Measures Against the United StatesPost + Comments (117)
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Needs More Jeebus, Tho
So @Walmart is now capitalizing on the 'dumb veteran t-shirt with AR-15s and patriotic skulls' market https://t.co/dFLCSaKD4g pic.twitter.com/jhYeuco0uv
— Alex Horton (@AlexHortonTX) November 15, 2017
.
Apart from pointing & mocking, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
***********
I had to look…did you notice XXL is sold out? My goodness, this is a real life Duffelblog article.
— Patrick Quinn (@PatrickJQuinn2) November 15, 2017
"Oh me? I was in the anti-Antifa veteran division. I brought the milk in case any of my brothers pepper-sprayed themselves" https://t.co/TjEMsUSM58
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) November 15, 2017
Raises an interesting question- could the purchase at Walmart and subsequent wear of said shirt by a non-veteran constitute Stolen Valor?
— Kent Eiler (@KentEiler) November 15, 2017
Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Needs More Jeebus, ThoPost + Comments (80)
Pet Rescue Bleg UPDATE: Driving Flying Miss Callie (Minnesota to Maryland)
Last of the Minnesota kittens, Miss Callie, is being fostered by NewDealFarmGrrl until she can go to her permanent home with B Lamb in Maryland. Unfortunately, TLC Pet Transport (the people who drove Walter) turns out to be less than optimal (they would charge approximately $1500).
Fortunately, experienced cat-courier Reilyn has stepped up:
The flight I’m thinking of per my last comment on the blog leaves DCA late Friday Dec 8 to MSP, then has a return flight the afternoon/evening of Sunday Dec 10 to DCA.
It’s on Sun Country which does not list a minimum age requirement, and as of when I looked at it Sat/Sun was running about 276 bucks for the round trip flight, plus 125 for a one-way pet fee.
I can easily get to DCA on my own on the 8th and fly out and stay w/ my mother; then meet up to retrieve the kitteh on Sat the 9th or the morning of Sunday the 10th and have my mom take me to the airport to make the flight back to DCA, then meet up at DCA to purr-form ;) the exchange….
So — those of you who offered to chip in, this is your time to shine! I’d like to set a target of $500, with the understanding that Reilyn will forward any extra money for pet rescue. Send me an email (‘Contact an author’ or [email protected] ) and I’ll reply with the link to Reilyn’s PayPal address.