FairAndUNbalanced.com

 
From Tommy Christopher:

At Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) pressed Mnuchin on Trump’s weakness, asking him if Trump ever asked him to impose sanctions on Russia.

Mnuchin tried to ignore her question by changing the subject to a sanctions report that his department compiled using a magazine article.

McCaskill kept asking, and Mnuchin awkwardly kept dodging.

When committee chair Orrin Hatch instructed her to let Mnuchin answer the question, she said, “He’s not answering the question. I want to know if the president asked him.”

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A faithful family man:

We must wonder why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From The Journal of Improbable Research:

Within the academic field of aesthetics, there aren’t all that many essays written on about potato crisp packets. There is, however, at least one.

Karin Wagner, who is professor and associate head of department for research in art history and visual studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, specialises in the areas of photography, new media and visual communication, and has a new paper in the Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, volume 10, 2018 – issue 1, entitled : ‘Nostalgic photographs in the contemporary image ecology: the example of Tyrrells crisp packaging’

“The purpose is to explore the ontological transformations of photographs in the contemporary image ecology, blurring the categories ‘analogue’ and ‘digital;. What new meanings and materiality can old photographs acquire when for instance put on packages that are used, thrown away, recycled and sometimes upcycled?”

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From driftglass:

Today, Mr. Kevin Williamson was Scaramuccied from The Atlantic for being, well, Kevin Williamson. Apparently, after hiring Mr. Williamson a little over a week ago week to a flurry of fifes and trumpets and condescending cavil from Jeffrey Goldberg about the importance of hearing from as many diverse voices wingnut scuttlefish as possible, Mr. Goldberg got around to, y’know, actually vetting his new hire to see if he was qualified for the job he had just been given.

In all my years and many jobs, I can say with perfect certainty that I have never been the beneficiary of a “Hire First/Ask Questions Later” personnel policy.

Obviously, I’m not greasing the right people.

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From Dave Dubya:

Here’s a good response to NRA hate mail solicitations. Send them a copy in their prepaid envelope. (Gun nuts don’t want you to know that Reagan opposed assault rifles.)

NRA: HOW IT WORKS…

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From Frances Langum:

Michael Avenatti, lawyer for Stormy Daniels, appeared on The Beat with Ari Melber Monday night for an immediate reaction to the Michael Cohen FBI raid.

I left at the beginning of the clip the comment by Jim Messina that everyone involved with permissions regarding the FBI raid are Republicans. Turns out at the law enforcement level, Republicans are doing their jobs and prosecuting crimes where they see them. Republican Congress? Not. And Jim Messina gets the line of the night saying that Michael Cohen has “more skeletons in his closet than a Grateful Dead concert.”

Michael Avenatti is not celebrating this case turning into a criminal investigation. It’s serious and it’s sad.

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From Shaun Mullen at The Moderate Voice:

It has been fascinating — in the grotesque sort of way that a slow-motion train wreck is fascinating — to watch the Russia scandal unfold. From the first intimations in late 2016 that the dark hand of Vladimir Putin was at work to elect Donald Trump to our dawning realization that the Trump campaign colluded in that effort to our astonishment at how enormous and successful the effort was, there has been one revelation after another. And so prepare your addled self for the possibility of another jaw dropper: The Kremlin may have sent Paul Manafort into a campaign he was soon to manage to insure that Trump insiders helped Putin play his game.

That would have seemed preposterous even a few weeks ago, but now seems increasingly possible.

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From Michael John Scott at MadMikesAmerica:

If there were an award for America’s worst governor the multi-millionaire, Trump loving Rick Scott would be a favorite to win. One of the Republicans first executive decisions once taking office in 2011 was to order all staff to remove any reference to climate change on government websites, and government press releases. In addition, staff was prohibited from even mentioning climate change while at work. The list goes on and on, but time and tide wait for no man so we will move on.

Scott confirmed to Politico on Monday that he is definitely going to challenge incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) for his Senate seat this November.

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