I love Dem strategist Adam Parkhomenko!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

3. More...

Sonofagun

We’ll have big fun, on the bayou. Trump made three trips to Louisiana. The Republican running for governor did everything he could to nationalize this race. Trump stood on a stage just last week and begged the voters to elect the Republican for him. And his punk ass still lost. Congrats to John Bel Edwards who joined Andy Beshear in Kentucky in giving Trump some extra heartburn (assuming one can get heartburn without a heart). Between that and the Roger Stone news, we’re practically walking on air. Dirty, dirty, polluted air. More: New York Times

‘A secret mission’

Remember those two super sketchy motherfuckers who got busted at Dulles trying to leave the country with one-way tickets just after having lunch with their cousin-loving buddy Rudy Giuliani? Remember how Trump pretended he didn’t know who they were? Well, CNN is reporting that at last year’s White House Hanukkah party (yeah, surprised us too), the Laurel and Hardy of Eastern European corruption (Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman) met privately with Trump and Giuliani where the president told the two men about a “secret mission” for them to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. Yeah, this stuff is getting really deep and smelly (we definitely have a theme today) fast. So let’s please remember that the Republican Party thinks all of this is ok. More: CNN

The Barr gets lower

Fresh off refusing to investigate the whistleblower complaint that he kept from Congress, refusing a congressional subpoena and lying about the results of the Mueller report to the nation, AG Bill Barr went to his friends at the Federalist Society and said the real problem is “the left” doesn’t respect American law and norms and will do anything to win. It was about this time we took a power drill to the sides of our heads. Barr’s vicious, delusional speech revealed some ugly and terrifying truths about the lengths these scumbags will go to justify their lawless power grab. Simply put, Barr doesn’t think doing anything to hurt the left and help the right is wrong because he does not believe the left are deserving of rights or a voice. This is some really scary shit, and it makes us question for the millionth time why in the hell our Capitol Hill friends have given him a pass at every turn. Because he’s only going to get worse. More: CNN

Today’s clips

David Holmes, a career foreign service officer, told impeachment investigators Friday that he overheard a phone call between President Donald Trump and E.U. Ambassador Gordon Sondland in which the president asked Sondland if Ukraine would investigate the Bidens, a source with direct knowledge of his closed-door testimony said.
More: NBC News

A top national security aide to Vice President Mike Pence told House impeachment investigators that President Donald Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political opponents were “unusual and inappropriate,” and “shed some light on possible other motivations” for the president’s order to freeze military aid to the U.S. ally.
More: Politico

Lawmakers are voicing mounting concerns about a federal tax incentive, known as an “opportunity zone,” that is supposed to encourage investors to pump money into the nation’s poorest neighborhoods.
More: New York Times

Waiters were coming and going as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland spoke on the phone with President Trump on July 26 from the outdoor section of a central Kyiv restaurant and discussed the Ukrainian president’s willingness to conduct politically charged investigations, an episode that also highlighted the lack of security around a presidential call, according to testimony to Congress and a person familiar with the episode.
More: Washington Post

A longtime budget official testified Saturday that the White House decision to freeze military aid to Ukraine in mid-July was highly irregular and that senior political appointees in the Office of Management and Budget were unable to provide an explanation for the delay. More: Washington Post

A White House official sought to restrict access to a rough transcript of a July call between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart because the official feared that a leak of the conversation could be politically damaging, according to the official’s testimony to House impeachment investigators.
More: Wall Street Journal

Why Trump Attacked Marie Yovanovitch
More: The Atlantic

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hammered President Trump in an interview on Friday over his attack on former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch while she testified in front of Congress, saying the smear reflects his "insecurity" over being an "imposter" in the Oval Office.
More: The Hill

Rudy Giuliani, a New York Times reporter and me: When corrections go wrong
More: Salon

The Trump administration is preparing to significantly limit the scientific and medical research that the government can use to determine public health regulations, overriding protests from scientists and physicians who say the new rule would undermine the scientific underpinnings of government policymaking.
More: New York Times

Heading into Friday’s impeachment hearing, the Republican strategy for dealing with Marie L. Yovanovitch was simple: treat the ousted ambassador to Ukraine with respect during her testimony on Friday and avoid any appearance of bullying a veteran diplomat who had been vilified and driven from her post.

President Trump blew up the plan.
More: New York Times

‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims
More: New York Times

When the Southern Poverty Law Center’s blog Hatewatch revealed on Tuesday that Stephen Miller had pushed racist—and explicitly white-nationalist—content over and over again in 2015 and 2016, President Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser didn’t need any reassurances from his boss or his colleagues that his job was safe. Practically everyone in the building already knew it.
More: The Daily Beast

A cache of emails revealed this week in which White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, in the run-up to the 2016 election, shared articles and websites affiliated with white nationalism has disturbed officials working in the Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department, who called the emails “sickening” and “proof” that Miller has been steering a racist immigration policy under President Trump.
More: Buzzfeed News

President Trump intervened in three cases involving war crimes accusations on Friday, issuing full pardons to two soldiers and reversing disciplinary action against a Navy SEAL despite opposition raised by military justice experts and some senior Pentagon officials.
More: Washington Post

Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead
More: The Daily Beast

House Democrats are calling Donald Trump’s decision to attack Marie Yovanovitch mid-hearing on Friday a blatant example of witness intimidation, further building the case to charge the president with obstruction in potential articles of impeachment.
More: Politico



If you have a friend, family member, or neighbor that would like to sign up for this free daily newsletter they can go to Bigstuff.us.