Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I: Trump’s choice of what to lie about is revealing.
MahaBlog: What kind of “elites” could be this clueless?
Green Eagle: Eventually the Republicans will have their revenge on Trump.
TYWKIWDBI: Good riddance to the culture that did this.
Blog round-up by Infidel753. Tips to mbru [at] crooksandliars [dot] com.
Apparently Kellyanne Conway can throw a punch when called upon to do so. At least, that’s what Fox Business host Charlie Gasparino says.
Gasparino wrote on his Facebook page that “inside the ball we see a fight between two guys in tuxes and then suddenly out of nowhere came trump adviser Kellyanne Conway who began throwing some mean punches at one of the guys.”
“Whole thing lasted a few mins no one was hurt except maybe the dude she smacked. Now I know why trump hired her.”
The New York Daily News reports that the incident took place at the Liberty Ball, where “Conway apparently punched one of them in the face with closed fists at least three times, according to stunned onlookers.”
Just keeping it classy.
(h/t Oliver Willis)
Open thread below….
Jaki Liebezeit, drummer and founding member of Can, has passed at the age of 78 following a case of pneumonia.
Though the music he was associated with was very often described as motorik due to it’s hypnotic and mechanical rhythms, Jaki’s style was very human. It had a swing and a funk to it. No matter the weird places the songs may have gone, he was a backbone and the foundation for much of it.
Along with playing on all of Can’s 12 studio albums, Liebezeit also laid beats down on Brian Eno’s Before and After Science as well as working with Depeche Mode and Neu! member Michael Rother.
Finding that ONE song that defines his style is not an easy task but “Moonshake” from Can’s 1973 album Future Days is a good place as any to start.
What are you listening to tonight?
It’s not looking especially good for National Security Adviser Michael Flynn right now. There are new reports – by which I mean new leaks from the intelligence community – which suggest he had more than the two contacts with the Russian embassy claimed by Sean Spicer in today’s press briefing.
Michael Flynn, the National Security Adviser to President Trump, has been under investigation—and possibly still is—for what has been described as his “repeated contacts” with a Russian official, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Flynn’s communications have been under scrutiny by the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, and the Treasury Department as part of a counterintelligence probe into ties between the Kremlin and Trump’s team, according to the report. The investigation stems from reports that surfaced this month about the retired general making phone calls to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak on the very same day the Obama administration announced new sanctions against Russia. While a spokesman for Trump dismissed the phone call as nothing more than a diplomatic formality, sources cited by the Journal say the investigation concerns “repeated contacts” between Flynn and Kislyak, and prior conversations with Russian figures.
CBS This Morning’s hosts spoke with the former Press Secretary who served at the beginning of the Bush Administration, Ari Fleischer. Sadly, Fleischer seems like the voice of reason and decorum, even more so after seeing the way Spicer conducted himself.
Who knew that less than a decade after Bush 43 we’d miss his administration’s ETHICS?
And the problem isn’t just that Spicer lied, it’s that he is Goebbels. He’s pushing propaganda and lying because Trump’s administration is going to re-define “truth” to be whatever Donald Trump says it is.
This isn’t just about “truth,” it’s about authoritarian power.
O'DONNELL: I know he’s a friend. What concerns you?
FLEISCHER: It’s one thing to take on the press. That’s a time-honored tradition in Washington, D.C. .
O'DONNELL: by Republicans and Democrats.
FLEISCHER: Absolutely. Take them on when you have the high road. About how many people on the ground showed up in the audience of the inauguration, who cares? It is not worth fighting over.
ROSE: And where it took place, too. In terms of the question that the president did at the CIA when he raised the question of crowd size in front of the heroes of the CIA.
The Senate just voted to confirm Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State and Mike Pompeo for CIA Director, adding an ExxonMobil and Koch swamp monster to the swamp which is not at all being drained, but instead being populated.
Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, will now be making decisions on the KeystoneXL and Dakota pipelines.
I will continue to say this until someone in high-profile media hears me. Follow. the. Oil. Follow it to the end.
Mike Pompeo (R-Koch), will be heading up the agency which is investigating the Trump campaign and transition relationships with Russian operatives. Will he allow those investigations to continue?
His comments signaled that his hostility toward the agency might subside when his designated director is in charge. But CIA veterans say that Pompeo may face more fundamental challenges, including whether he will be listened to at the White House and able to insert hard information into debates presided over by a president who has suggested he sees information on WikiLeaks as more reliable than the contents of intelligence briefs.
Here is a little more information on Pompeo’s views, via McClatchy:
In a wide-ranging interview on Morning Joe this morning, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill covered the following topics:
The Womens March: I frankly said in a very short remarks to the crowd in St. Louis, hey, quit yelling at the TV and let this not be the last time you use some shoe leather. And we will be trying very hard to capture this energy and make sure it translates into volunteers and door knocking and all of the things that are really necessary for us to fight, particularly with Citizens United, the amount of dark money that is going to flow into these midterm elections.
[Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]
It was a scene ripe for violence last Friday night in Red Square on the University of Washington campus in Seattle: Several hundred fans of the racist “Alt-Right” figure Milo Yiannopoulos outside the hall where he was to speak, waiting to be let in, confronted by a much larger crowd of counter-protesters, chanting anti-Trump and anti-fascist slogans, including an organized pack of masked, black-clad anarchists.
Eventually, violence did strike. An antifascist protester was shot during one of the many small melees that broke out during the evening. Police said a 34-year-old man was seriously wounded by the gunfire and was in critical condition at a local hospital after undergoing surgery.
One can only guess what he said to her to make her this unhappy.
Source: Little Green Footballs
This video clip has been circulating on Twitter, showing a rather shocking moment between Donald Trump and his wife Melania. Trump is turned to face her, and she’s beaming at him — but as he turns away to face front again, Melania’s face collapses into what can only be called a miserable frown as soon as he’s not looking at her.