Nov. 27 Open Thread: Tear Gas Si, Lettuce No

Welcome to Donald Trump’s Festung Amerika, where a salad can make you sick but you can put tear gas on your nachos.

There’s no smoking gun linking the latest e. coli outbreak to Trump-relaxed water regulations — signers of the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement meets Obama-era standards — but it’s not welcome news to those looking to avoid riding the porcelain Honda in the future.

That pepper-based crowd dispersal gas, though, that’s safe enough to eat, according to a former Border Patrol official. Do I smell a new flavor of Doritos here?

One of Josh Marshall’s federal prosecutor readers brings up a fair point: Trump is getting a pass from the press and public on not meeting with Mueller, and speculates that Trump’s lawyers may have already told investigators Trump would plead the Fifth Amendment if pressured to appear before a grand jury.

Paul Manafort still won’t crack. The Mueller probe filed court papers claiming Manafort broke his plea deal by lying to investigators. Meanwhile, The Guardian’s sources say Manafort met with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange several times in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London between 2013 and 2016. Here’s how those two things are related.

From the Signs of the Apocalypse file: the Foreskin Facial, which is not what you think. It’s worse, even though it’s safe for work. You can always count on the British tabloids to follow the news wherever it goes.