by John Walters
*Happy birthday, Drew!
Quotable
Trevor Noah on Robert Woodward’s Trump book:
“Obviously, all of this stuff is crazy, but at some point I think we’ve got to stop saying it’s a ‘bombshell.’ I mean, Trump is just doing a lot more Trump than we thought he would. But it’s not a bombshell. The day it comes out that Trump secretly works out and reads Shakespeare and teaches kids how to code, that’s when we can call it a bombshell.”
Starting Five
To Kav and Kav Not
Watching California senator Kamala Harris expose Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh yesterday was illuminating. He lawyered up when she asked him a question that he realized she obviously knew the answer to, and then he refused to answer her question as to whether there was blame on both sides in the Charlottesville riots.
Behind closed doors, this is the dirtiest of Washington scenes. BK is being advised to stay quiet, play dumb, and then the GOP majority will push you through pronto. Then it’s presidential pardons and what-not. He’s of the “whatever-it-takes” school of fascism, just like the men in power right now. Or alt-right now.
2. Lodestar Power
We’ll take Barron Trump as the author and give us the long odds
Did the person who wrote the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times titled “I Am Part of The Resistance Inside The Trump Administration” use the uncommon noun “lodestar” to throw readers off the track? This is a term that V.P. Mike Pence has used often in the past, after all. Or was it actually the Veep?
Spoiler Alert: Bryan Colangelo’s wife wrote the anonymous NYTimes op-ed piece.
— Andrew Goldstein (@AngeGold) September 6, 2018
We think the person above has solved the mystery.
Meanwhile, that op-ed has already generated nearly 9,000 comments.
3. The MH Domin-Eight
No one is more successful and also more miserable than Saban
- Alabama….I’m not gonna move them off No. 1, so quit asking.
- Clemson….Looking forward to this weekend’s action in College Station, a.k.a. “Dabo V. Jimbo.”
- Ohio State….Urban Who?
- Georgia…The Dawgs are the only school on this list who did not allow a point last weekend.
- Auburn…How many schools have ever played three consecutive games in the same out-of-state dome?
- Oklahoma…No Baker, no problem.
- Wisconsin...Jonathan Taylor-not-Thomas galloped for 145 on just 18 carries.
- Notre Dame…The D looked impressive for the Irish in a signature win.
4. Mighty, Mighty Boston
You have to love that a 37 year-old playing in his first game of the season can get that dirty
There were the Sox, playing a matinee getaway game in Atlanta and already fat and happy after two straight wins versus the first-place Braves. Trailing 7-1 to start the eighth inning. Start up the busses.
Not so fast. The Sawx scored sixth in the eighth to tie it, but then it got better. After Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman homered in the bottom of the inning to put the Braves ahead, Boston found itself with two outs, two strikes, one man on and newly acquired veteran Brandon Phillips, an Atlanta native, up at bat. Phillips, wearing “0” and a player so old he was originally drafted by the Montreal Expos, was playing in his first game in The Show this season.
Home run. Boston wins 9-8. The Sawx lead the Yankees by 9 1/2, which is exactly what they led by when New York limped out of Fenway a month ago having been swept four straight. It’s as if the Sawx are a lodestar or something.
5. Here, Li’l Putty Tat….
Man’s new best friend? This extremely friendly lion just wanted some affection from tourists at a Crimean safari park—and climbed right into their car to get it: https://t.co/m1KwNVy70z pic.twitter.com/p2OSvuAwPe
— ABC News (@ABC) September 6, 2018
In our humble domicile, when a member of the feline persuasion begins behaving this way, we say that he is attacking with “Kitty Love Bombs,” or “KLBs.” Who knew that such behavior was rampant all the way up the genetic chain to the alpha of the species?
Music 101
Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwhtyFIAqf8
On their eponymous 1964 debut album, the Rolling Stones included a dozen tunes, but Mick and Keith only wrote one of them: this one. This was also the Stones’ first single, climbing to No. 24 in the U.S. and No. 1 in Sweden.
Remote Patrol
Falcons at Eagles
8:20 p.m. NBC
Came and Wentz
We’re not actually fans of Al Michaels or the NFL, but some of you are, so here’s a reminder that the NFL season kicks off this evening. Come for Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad, stick around to see Carson Wentz standing on the sideline.
On the one hand, I was THRILLED that anon “Resister” (HA!) wrote that tell-all because it just piles on the CHAOS. On the other, he & the other “WH Resisters” (HA!) are trying to have it both ways – keep their POWER jobs in federal government AND start laying the groundwork for their OWN defenses come our version of the ‘Nuremburg Trials’. ( I offer up a locale about 40 miles outside D.C. – GERMANTOWN).
And again, every lowlife scum sucking REPUBLICAN in Congress AND in positions of govt handpicked by Trump that have ENABLED this Sociopath are COLLABORATORS & need to be dealt with as such. WINER IS COMING & IT’S GONNA BE NON-STOP BLIZZARDS. Perhaps the last 2 days have been the preceding “bomb cyclones”?
And I can barely think of a WORSE Supreme Court nominee than Kavanaugh. That this process is even happening while the Executive branch of our national government is literally breaking apart from INCOMPETENCE, AMORALITY, CORROSION & CORRUPTION before our very eyes, day after day is a TRAVESTY.
I don’t want to wait for the history books to excoriate McConnell & Graham, I want them indicted NOW for failing to protect this country from a sociopath.
Er, that is “WINTER IS COMING”.
Also, when The Sociopath MANDATES every employee in the WH to take lie-detector tests, anyone who does not immediately quit & walk out the door shouting “I AM SPARTACUS!” should be indicted. Good luck paying those hundreds of thousands in legal fees when no one will employ you for more than minimum wage. (Gonna wish they had supported that whole “liveable wage” thing, ah, the irony).
Regarding Brett Kavanaugh and Kamala Harris:
First, I’m no fan of DJT. And, I don’t want one of his appointed SCOTUS judges to scuttle the progress the Bob Mueller is making. Nor do I want said SCOTUS appointee to let DJT go free if/when it’s proven that he did something illegal.
Having said that, I don’t understand the hoopla here. Even before Sen. Mike Lee interrupted, I thought to myself, “There’s tons of lawyers in D.C. How would one know which person you ran into at a cocktail party was a lawyer at a specific firm?” In other words, I don’t know where everyone I run into at a party works. If I’m lucky, I’ll know what they do for a living, but I don’t always ask where.
Plus, if I’m being asked questions under oath, I’d want to be certain of my answer. The last thing I’d want is for me to answer “No,” then some obscure person to come out and say they worked at said firm saying I happened to talk about the Mueller news in passing in the hallway of the courthouse, or at a random party filled with people I didn’t know all that well. This question appeared to be a gotcha question.
If it were me, I’d feel it reasonable to ask for a roster (possibly with photos) of the people who work at the firm. That way I can be more certain. Otherwise, I’d have answered, “No, not that I can recall,” or something to the effect of “I’ve spoken to several people about the Mueller investigation when it pops up in the news. I can’t recall everyone I spoke to about it. But, as far as I know, the people with which I’ve spoken to, none of them were employees at the firm.”
Also – I felt as if Sen. Harris was a bit disrespectful. It’s one thing to be pointed, but was it really necessary to add commentary like “I’m surprised you forget (the question) already”? I know that it’s not unheard of for this type of commentary to occur during questioning at a congressional hearing, but I absolutely hate it (regardless of party affiliation).
But, what do I know? Just my two cents.
Micah,
I’m going to go ahead and guess that Kamala knows exactly whom Brett spoke with and that it may even be the first name on the firm’s list of partners. You don’t ask that question without knowing the answer and BK’s request for a roster was the tell that he wasn’t willing to be forthcoming. I could be wrong but I highly doubt it. He spoke with someone way high up.
Happy Birthday, Drew! Make this year the best yet.