BREAKING FROM SPECIAL COUNSEL: The court has scheduled a plea hearing for Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn (Ret.), 58, of Alexandria, Va., at 10:30 a.m.
— Steve Kopack (@SteveKopack) December 1, 2017
Open thread
Go long popcorn
Russiagate Open Thread: Saturday Night Cold Dish
Today is the 1-year anniversary of the Comey letter, which was probably decisive in the election. https://t.co/FjiCZKHbdr
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 28, 2017
CNN: Mueller’s arresting folks
MSNBC: Mueller’s arresting folks
Nick Jr: Mueller’s arresting folks
Fox: Obama may be blacker than we thought— mamoudou n'diaye (@MamoudouNDiaye) October 28, 2017
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“But wait,” cries the Mad Bitcher, “Some of us love chum!”…
i mean jfc pic.twitter.com/iz566hwyFd
— Ian Sams (@IanSams) October 28, 2017
and they say the left can't meme
— Zedward Tweeterhands (@ZeddRebel) October 28, 2017
Russiagate Open Thread: Saturday Night Cold DishPost + Comments (121)
Root for injuries
EXCLUSIVE: Pardoned Joe Arpaio tells @stevennelson10 he may challenge Jeff Flake for Senate. https://t.co/BwuWQ7gaaa
— Philip Klein (@philipaklein) August 28, 2017
Open thread
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The MH370 of Presidential Speeches
Don Lemon: "What we have just witnessed is a total eclipse of the facts….
He's unhinged. It's embarrassing" – @donlemon
— Chris Golden (@chrisgolden) August 23, 2017
Okay, I try to keep this Early Morning Open Thread positive, and yes there are a half-dozen other stories worth discussing. But Murphy take the wheel, the Oval Office Occupant’s televised “rally” last night well and truly broke all previous records — even for this guy.
If Richard Nixon had been given access to Xanax, Ambien, Twitter, and his own personal broadcast network, he couldn’t have put on a more delirious spectacle. Somewhere Hunter S. Thompson is telling himself What an imagination I’ve got…
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Looking at live tweets of a Trump speech instead of watching the speech itself is my soul's eclipse glasses.
— Mat Johnson (@mat_johnson) August 23, 2017
Wow. Don Lemon doesn't hold back. pic.twitter.com/wCBQoat74B
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) August 23, 2017
The news from Trump's night in Phoenix, in part:
Culture war; shutdown over the wall; NAFTA failure; Sheriff Joe pardon; #AZSen and more: pic.twitter.com/APjN7wwmX8
— Eric Bradner (@ericbradner) August 23, 2017
People waited in 107 degree heat for this public episode.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) August 23, 2017
Trump says time for Americans to remember "we are all on the same team and we are Americans first"
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) August 23, 2017
America First! (Surely we’ve heard that slogan before.)
Like a team of horses under one driver, one whip!
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: The MH370 of Presidential SpeechesPost + Comments (141)
Always on the record
Axios is getting fed a line of bull:
The White House chief strategist has told associates he never intended to do an “interview” with an editor at the American Prospect, a left-wing publication.
Bannon has told associates that he admired the author’s stance on China, and so called the journalist, Robert Kuttner, on Tuesday, to discuss his piece. Apparently Bannon never thought that the journalist might take his (very newsworthy) comments and turn them into a story. It’s Anthony Scaramucci all over again (minus the curse words.)
Bull.
I’m a health policy analyst with some press contacts but I am a virtual no one in the grand scheme of things.
I know that everything I say starting with “Hello” is on the record unless both parties specifically agree that a conversation or part of a conversation is either off the record, for background or not for attribution. Yes, I know that some of my comments will never be printed. Those are often comments regarding how freaking adorable the puppy pictures on Twitter are but everything can be printed.
Several months ago, I was in DC for work. I try to get my work down and I also try to meet with people I talk to on Twitter so I can put names and voices to Twitter accounts. I arranged a coffee with a reporter. We met and as soon as I finished stirring my coffee, the reporter had a tape recorder out just in case we discussed anything super interesting. Did that shape how I expressed some ideas? Yes, but we still had a great conversation and we both came out of it with a better understanding of the other. That’s life when talking with a reporter.
Cartman in the Oval Office
A statement by the President: pic.twitter.com/liWE4rlleF
— Real Press Sec. (@RealPressSecBot) August 16, 2017
Update Thank you to Adam for finding live footage of Trump’s current Cabinet meeting:
Shelley Levine
Even the conservative National Review has Trump pegged:
He has had a middling career in real estate and a poor one as a hotelier and casino operator but convinced people he is a titan of industry. He has never managed a large, complex corporate enterprise, but he did play an executive on a reality show. He presents himself as a confident ladies’ man but is so insecure that he invented an imaginary friend to lie to the New York press about his love life and is now married to a woman who is open and blasé about the fact that she married him for his money. He fixates on certain words (“negotiator”) and certain classes of words (mainly adjectives and adverbs, “bigly,” “major,” “world-class,” “top,” and superlatives), but he isn’t much of a negotiator, manager, or leader. He cannot negotiate a health-care deal among members of a party desperate for one, can’t manage his own factionalized and leak-ridden White House, and cannot lead a political movement that aspires to anything greater than the service of his own pathetic vanity.
He wants to be John Wayne, but what he is is “Woody Allen without the humor.” Peggy Noonan, to whom we owe that observation, has his number: He is soft, weak, whimpering, and petulant. He isn’t smart enough to do the job and isn’t man enough to own up to the fact. For all his gold-plated toilets, he is at heart that middling junior salesman watching Glengarry Glen Ross and thinking to himself: “That’s the man I want to be.” How many times do you imagine he has stood in front of a mirror trying to project like Alec Baldwin? Unfortunately for the president, it’s Baldwin who does the good imitation of Trump, not the other way around.
Read the whole thing, but only if you have the brass balls it takes to sell real estate.