You thought Game of Thrones was the ultimate in cutthroat palace intrigue? Hah! Today on Morning Joe, we have the not-so-surprising news that the person leaking stories to weaken Jared Kushner is… Steve Bannon.

Color me shocked.

“Mika, there’s all this talk about leaks from the CIA, leaks from the FBI,” Scarborough said.

“When it comes to Jared Kushner, the leaks are all coming from inside the White House,” he said.

“According to my sources, Bannon was bragging to journalists a month and a half ago that he didn’t have to worry about Kushner and he was going to sideline Kushner because of Russia – that he had information on the Russian investigation and that he was going to sideline Jared Kushner,” he said.

“Two days after I heard this, two days! Front page New York Times story about the links between Kushner and Russia. A coincidence? Absolutely not. Steve Bannon has been leaking, I believe, based on everything that I’ve heard, has been leaking these stories.

"People very close to Steve Bannon were telling me before the stories were leaked that he was going to be leaking these stories. He has a job and wants to keep it and will do what’s necessary to do that.”

Mika replied, “We have bad forces competing with each other inside the White House, one could argue.”

Trump’s OMB Director is not pleased that the AHCA, a horrific and rushed healthcare bill that was passed only for political reasons was scored so poorly by the CBO, so he wants to destroy the institution.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Mulvaney said “the day of the institution as an authoritative non-partisan arbiter of legislation "has probably come and gone.”

Under Trump, if he’s not happy with the results he gets, don’t fix the real problem, legislation or executive order, just try and fire those responsible for disagreeing with you.

Mulvanely is claiming “political bias” is at he root cause of all the CBO’s problems and can’t be trusted.

Without the CBO, he argued that multiple entities could do their own scoring, using the hypothetical example of a proposed regulation to eliminate a type of light bulb.

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Covfefe brings out the songwriter in many (first one is my favorite for the best lyrics)

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Open thread below…

Ronnie Wood turns 70 years old today. Sure, we could talk about his time in the Faces and the Rolling Stones. We could also talk about how the stuff he did with the Jeff Beck Group or how he was in the Creation for a quick spell.

Instead though, let go back a little further. Back to the first recording he appeared on. The year was 1964. He was 17 years old and his R&B Beat Combo the Birds released their first single “You’re On My Mind” for Decca records.

What are you listening to tonight?

While debating Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris Accord, Van Jones called out Trump’s former economic adviser Stephen Moore for lying about Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

During a debate about Trump’s announcement to pull of of the Paris Accord, Van Jones and Stephen Moore debated climate change on CNN’s AC360.

Jones argued that conservatives in Congress blocked much of Obama’s policies and then cited California as a state that has a very stringent environmental policy and also has a great economy.

“It turns out when you have good environmental policy with the new technology, you actually drive economic growth,” Jones said.

On Republicans that are denying climate change he growled, “They grab different examples that they don’t explain well around the world and throw a bunch of word salad at you.”

Jones also pointed out that America is now pulling away from creating new technologies and jobs because of Trump.

Stephen Moore, who was one of the top economic advisers to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign used an example that frustrated Jones.

Moore said, “We already have an example of what these climate change policies can do with something called the Clean Power Plan–”

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On the heels of news that the Trump administration is looking into ways to return the compounds confiscated by the Obama administration to punish Russia for interfering in our elections, a new bombshell has dropped, this time from Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News.

According to the report, top Trump administration officials tasked State Department staffers with developing proposals for the lifting of economic sanctions, the return of diplomatic compounds and other steps to relieve tensions with Moscow.

This horrified staffers, who then reached out to Congress to try and get them to take legislative action and make it more difficult for the administration to unilaterally revoke the sanctions.

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Sean Hannity wants you to know that he is against boycotts, especially the actions taken against him by Media Matters – which he calls a boycott. But he’s all for the same actions being taken against MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show because that is not a boycott. Got that? No, me neither.

In a nearly 15-minute opening monologue last night, Hannity began by defiantly telling his audience that he is still pursuing his “investigation” into conspiracy theories about the Seth Rich murder.

Then, reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s famous “I am not a crook” declaration, Hannity announced, “I am not and have never been a conspiracy theorist.”

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The co-chair and founder of New Hampshire chapter of ‘Veterans for Trump,’ no oxymoron intended, was arrested back in March, 2016, for his role in the Bundy standoff.

As we’ve watched in collective frustration, one by one, these domestic terrorist-gun nuts were somehow either exonerated or their trials resulted in a hung jury or a mistrial. But that changed for Gerald DeLemus on the final day of a tumultuous May.

KLAS CBSTV

LAS VEGAS - A New Hampshire man has been sentenced to seven years for his role at an armed standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada in support of rancher Cliven Bundy in 2014.

Gerald “Jerry” DeLemus, 62, is the first person sentenced to federal prison for his role in an armed confrontation with U.S. agents near Bundy’s ranch.

Chief U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro called DeLemus a “bully vigilante.”

DeLemus has already been jailed for more than a year.

The judge denied DeLemus’ effort to withdraw the guilty pleas he entered last August to conspiracy and interstate travel in aid of extortion.

He admitted joining Bundy backers after the tense gunpoint standoff northeast of Las Vegas.

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Here’s something Rush Limbaugh said on his show yesterday:

I don’t understand how people don’t get that it’s not just the Democrats in Washington that are roadblocking Trump….

Mitch McConnell says he can’t see a way to getting 50 votes for the House Obamacare repeal bill? Now, stop and think here, folks….

I saw a Wall Street Journal story about how the Republicans in the House, they just can’t! It’s just impossible. They’re pulling their hair out. They don’t know what to do. They just can’t find a way to cut any taxes. Because every time they cut a tax over here, they have to find a way to make the money up over there, and they just can’t. They’re looking at all these various tax cuts proposals and they said, “I — I — I don’t know how we’re gonna pay for all this.”

So the Republican Party, which is ostensibly the party of the president — and they owe their majority to him, particularly the Senate — are roadblocking Donald Trump more than the Democrats are, because the Democrats cannot. The Democrats don’t have the votes in the House to stop Trump. The Democrats don’t have the votes in the Senate to stop Trump, although there is the 60-vote cloture requirement. It’s not the Democrats standing up and saying, “We are not gonna help. We’re gonna stand in the way of any foolish tax cut you propose.”

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It seems like lots of players in the Trump Russia story are changing their tune today, perhaps in time for the Comey testimony.

First up, none other than Vladimir Putin changed his story. Before there was no collusion at all and how dare you. Today it’s “perhaps some non-state actors” who were “patriotically minded” tried to overthrow the US election.

It’s a shame Vladimir Putin has so little control over his people. (snark)

And the story is changing among some Republicans over here, too. Here’s wingnut MIchael Reagan being given a prime time stage on CNN to spout that hey, so what if there was collusion. Collusion isn’t illegal because Don Lemon can’t come up with the law that was broken off the top of his head.

Thankfully, both Media Matters and Politifact took the time to find the laws that were broken.

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