When You’ve Lost Hannity…: Sean Hannity has seen the light, in the form of a yearbook signature. He gave Roy Moore 24 hours to get his story straight or he’s dropping his support.
Elf Abuse: Jeff Sessions made lots of headlines for his testimony on Russia-related matters, but for sheer schadenfreude you can’t top the 5-minute flaying he got from Rep. Karen Bass over a DOJ report on “black identity extremists” and their supposed aim of killing police officers. He makes Dan Quayle sound like Churchill, and you just know it’s torture for him to be taking this dressing-down from a black woman.
And the Tweets Go On: Josh Marshall makes an interesting point about Trump’s tweets during the campaign: They provide a kind of timeline of what was happening with the campaign’s efforts to get dirt on Clinton from Russia.
On the Creep Beat: One of the serial predators called out in the current wave of named names is director James Toback, a name I confess I didn’t recognize. If it rang a distant bell, it’s because he actually was outed way back in the ’80s by Spy magazine. The women who wrote it pseudonymously have at last stepped forward, and they reflect on the experience and compare it with today in this Slate interview.
All Apologies: Have you noticed how similar tales of Hollywood sexual predation are? The biggest difference is in the apologies. Katy Waldman wonders what we’re looking for in these public acknowledgements of wrongdoing.
What Did Trump Fuck Up Now: Lost in the creep-beat madness was the traveling freak show of Trump’s excellent Asian adventure — the toadying to dictators, the childlike awe at parades — and Digby surveys the wreckage.
Capitalism on the Prowl: Why are so many chain retailers declaring bankruptcy? It’s not online shopping, as the New Republic’s David Dayen explains. It’s predatory behavior by private equity firms, and its about to cost Americans hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Looking For the Real Trump Fans: Residents of Johnstown, Pa., are pushing back against that portrait of the town that Politico ran last week. Residents pointed out to Politico editors that Hillary Clinton actually won the town by 1%. It was the more affluent outlying areas near Pittsburgh that gave Trump his winning margin in the county, why not go pick on them? My guess: Because those higher-salary folks wouldn’t have told that racist NFL joke.
Ball of Confusion: Last but certainly not least, Rep. Louis Gohmert of Texas, a strong contender for America’s Dumbest Congressman, unveiled this conspiracy chart, designed to show…something, but actually showing that Gohmert deserves his reputation.
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