Last week, during a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, Waters, the ranking Democrat on the committee, asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin why he hadn’t responded to a letter she’d sent him in May requesting information about Trump’s financial ties to Russia. When Mnuchin responded by complimenting the congresswoman for her service to California, Waters chastised him for wasting time and urged him to answer her question. When he continued to dawdle, Waters responded, “Reclaiming my time.” She repeated the phrase — “Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time.” — until the committee chairman silenced Mnuchin.
A self-described “email prankster” in the UK fooled a number of White House officials into thinking he was other officials, including an episode where he convinced the White House official tasked with cyber security that he was Jared Kushner and received that official’s private email address unsolicited.
Spear phishing victims included:
Scaramucci (prankster masqueraded as Preibus and escalated the conflict between the two and masqueraded as Jon Huntsman Jr offering his help getting rid of people at the White House)
Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert (prankster masqueraded as Jared Kushner and invited him to a soiree)
Another
few days of bonkers news (#evergreen). I’ve tried to boil events down to a couple of sentences about what happened, and then a couple of sentences on how it fits
into the political context. These items are roughly chronological –
not exactly, because a lot of these things overlapped. But they’ve
all happened in the last ten days and were heavily in the news last
week.
Richard Engel reports on how, regardless of whether collusion with the Trump campaign is ever proven, Russia’s goal of sowing chaos and doubt in the American system is already working.
This is a Waterloo moment for Trump, the tea party and their alliance. They have been stopped in their tracks not only by Democratic opposition but because of a mutiny within their own ranks. Although never particularly liked or respected, it is now clear that they are no longer feared.
…
There were as many as 10 Republicans who had acknowledged that the proposal cobbled together at the last minute by the Republican leadership was so bad that, earlier in the day, they had demanded assurances from the House of Representatives that it would never become law.
It was left to McCain, however, to do the deed so the others could protect themselves from the retribution of party leaders or the wrath of tea party voters in the next Republican primary.
…
Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who earlier in the week had received a call from the secretary of the interior warning that the administration would drop its support for expanded energy drilling and road construction in Alaska if she dared to defy the president and Republican leadership on the crucial vote. Murkowski did not take well to being muscled in that ham-handed fashion. As chair of the two relevant committees, she announced that she was indefinitely postponing sessions to consider nominations to Interior’s top positions and to mark up its 2018 appropriations.
…
[With the support of establishment Republicans in Congress who said they will not hold confirmation hearings for a replacement] In the hours before the vote, the attorney general of the United States had defiantly declared that he had no intention of acceding to White House requests that he resign and dared the president to fire him.
…
military and civilian leaders at the Pentagon indicated they would “study” what to do about transgender members of the armed forces after the commander in chief had tweeted that they would no longer be allowed to serve.
Priebus was one of the only people with an important position in the White House who worked his way up through the Republican establishment. Trump may have fired him because he believes that getting rid of him will give him more free rein. In the very short term, that might be true. But Republicans in Congress are likely to see this as a serious affront.
…
But among the establishment, the moderates, the economic conservatives and the foreign policy neo-cons, they might be getting ready to stop playing games with Trump. The president may believe he’s insulating himself from Republican criticism, when in fact, he’s about to draw the battle lines within his own party so far away from his own position that he can’t possibly win. Democrats have no incentive to bail him out in Congress. If Trump loses any influence with only a few Republican Senators and a chunk of the House he will not be able to get any legislation passed for the rest of his term.
…
He has continued scrambling the political calculus in Washington, and Congressional Republicans have, so far, sought to just stay out of his way. But in terms of playing a long game, it seems that his habit of collapsing into bankruptcy hasn’t really changed since the 1980s. Everything he does is a reaction to the moment that gives him momentary advantage, but narrows his support in the long-term.
.
And I can only imagine that Mitch McConnell is pissed. McConnell does share some of the blame for the failure to repeal Obamacare, but it’s a crushing defeat for a man who likes his power and the defeat puts his leadership in jeopardy. Makes it awfully hard to tolerate being bad mouthed by someone who did very little to help and worked to put you in this position in the first place.
Snopes.com, which began as a small one-person effort in 1994 and has since become one of the Internet’s oldest and most popular fact-checking sites, is in danger of closing its doors. So, for the first time in our history, we are turning to you, our readership, for help.
Since our inception, we have always been a self-sustaining site that provides a free service to the online world: we’ve had no sponsors, no outside investors or funding, and no source of revenue other than that provided by online advertising. Unfortunately, we have been cut off from our historic source of advertising income.
We had previously contracted with an outside vendor to provide certain services for Snopes.com. That contractual relationship ended earlier this year, but the vendor will not acknowledge the change in contractual status and continues to essentially hold the Snopes.com web site hostage. Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it. The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us.
Our legal team is fighting hard for us, but, having been cut off from all revenue, we are facing the prospect of having no financial means to continue operating the site and paying our staff (not to mention covering our legal fees) in the meanwhile.
As misinformation has increasingly threatened democracies around the world (including our own), Snopes.com has stood in the forefront of fighting for truth and dispelling misinformation online. It is vital that these efforts continue, so we are asking the Snopes.com community to donate what they can. (Our suggested donation is $10, but if you can give more please consider doing so — every little bit helps.)
Hearseeno 